


I Had Strings But Now I'm Free

by HoneySempai



Series: A Cord of Three Strands [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (Movies)
Genre: #TeamNotTimeBomb, Age of Ultron Rewrite, Anxiety, Avengers Family, Avengers House Party, Aw Poor Rhodey, Bucky and I share the same opinion on Pinocchio, Bucky thinks he's slick, Bucky's nerves are basically completely shot, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Counselor Sam Wilson, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, F/M, Fear, Gen, Gender Nonconforming Bucky Barnes, Gratuitous mangling of 40s slang, Hallucinations, Jewish Pietro Maximoff, Jewish Steve Rogers, Jewish Tony Stark, Jewish Wanda Maximoff, Lullabies, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Missionfic, Mjolnir is a Feminist Icon, Multi, Natasha is not handling things well, Nonbinary Bucky Barnes, Rhodey explains it all, Romani Pietro Maximoff, Romani Wanda Maximoff, Russian lullabies are a special brand of scary, So are Tony's really, Soundtrack brought to you by my old Now CDs, Steve is a tad deliberately obtuse, Swerving around dat cheap drama, This gets brutal in spots, Thor doesn't get very much screentime and I'm sad about that, Trans Female Character, Trans Natasha Romanoff, Ultron is vicious, Wanda and Pietro less so, We only do gourmet drama here, don't do drugs kids, please heed all the chapter warnings, so many movie references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-10 15:36:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11129736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneySempai/pseuds/HoneySempai
Summary: The Avengers have spent a year hunting down Loki's scepter, stolen in the chaos of SHIELD's collapse. But when Tony's attempt to create a new kind of shield goes horribly awry, and a super powered pair of enemies joins the fray, the Avengers must figure out not only what they are as a team, but who they are as people.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [umetnica/ellesbeesknees](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=umetnica%2Fellesbeesknees).



> Welcome to my first RBB project! As this work has several chapters I will be posting them individually between now and June 25th, when the last chapter must go up. Depending on how quickly this gets beta'd, several chapters may go up on the 25th. 
> 
> The art that inspired this fic will be embedded in Chapter 5, but if you want to see it beforehand, [here](https://m.imgur.com/C0cBHEZ) it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: references to child abuse/non-consensual medical procedures/human experimentation and the Holocaust; canon-typical violence, body horror/gore, hallucinations, anxiety**

"Buck. _Buck_."

"Nnnn," Bucky groans into the pillow; his eye cracks open and tries to blink away the bleariness. Waking up after a dosage of Asgardian sleep aid is usually a pleasant ordeal, but only when an actual eight hours of sleep has been accomplished. "What."

"We got a call." Steve is kneeling by the side of the bed, clutching the mattress for balance. "Sokovia's signed the Accords. We're going for Strucker's base."

That wakes Bucky up, though he tries not to show it too much. Sokovia had been one of the last holdouts; its former generalissimo had been a Hydra plant, but a popular one for swiftly disposing of the lingering Russian presence in the country and delivering on his promises of improved infrastructure, job growth, and a military that was finally slightly more than negligible. #hydragate had dealt a huge blow to the blossoming economy, and the interim government set up after the People's Leader absconded had faced calls from a particularly vocal contingent urging the country to withdraw from the UN or, at the very least, refuse to sign the Accords allowing the Avengers to operate within their borders.

"Okay," Bucky mumbles, trying to sound suitably groggy.

"Both of us are gonna go."

Now Bucky can't help but look alive. Steve and Peggy have both gone on missions throughout the past year, with increasing frequency as more and more countries signed the Accords, but never at the same time, let alone on the same one. Before last April, when there hadn't been someone at home who needed them, they'd been willing to risk dying on the same mission. Nowadays they don't even leave the Tower together unless Bucky accompanies them.

"Fury's contact says Strucker's got the scepter," Steve explains, looking a little apologetic for all his certainty. "If he does, then it's...kind of an all-hands-on-deck scenario. We called up Rhodey and Sam for this. Woulda called up Sharon, too, if she weren't in the wind..."

"Oh," Bucky breathes; from the corner of his eye he sees Peggy ghost back into the bedroom, fussing with her uniform. "All right. You kids have fun."

"You're sure, darling?" Peggy asks, coming to stand beside Steve. "You'll be all right?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Bucky says, clearing his throat as he attempts a grin. It's not like his mental state is going to change anything. If the mission needs both his beloveds, then both of them have to go. "Better than fine. I get to enjoy this California King without Steve's snoring..."

"Jerk," Steve teases, tussling Bucky's already mussed hair; Bucky moves to bat his hand away but ends up grabbing his wrist and holding Steve's hand against the side of his head. After a second Peggy sits on the bed and gently lays her hand on Bucky's shoulder. 

"Be careful, okay?" Bucky finally says, his eyes staying tightly closed. "Don't do anything stupid. Either of you."

"I promise, we're leaving all the stupid right here in this bed," Steve says, scratching his fingertips against Bucky's scalp. 

"Punk," Bucky mutters, squeezing Steve's wrist until he can tell that it's causing some minor discomfort, and then letting go so he can turn over onto his back. He raises his hands, inviting Peggy to slot herself between them and receive a few tiny kisses dotted across her face. She gives him a proper kiss in return, not slow but satisfying regardless, and isn't particularly hasty about extricating herself. Once she's out of the way Steve clambers up so he's draped clumsily over the bed, dropping his own good-bye kiss on Bucky's mouth.

"Go back to sleep, okay? Don't worry too much."

"Nnn." Steve rewards his complacency with another kiss, before finally straightening himself out.

"We'll be back before you know it, darling," Peggy promises, as Steve joins her in the doorway; Bucky lifts his head to smile at them and then flops back down, giving them his final permission for their departure.

"I feel like I just kicked a puppy," Peggy says regardless, after Steve shuts the door; on the other side Bucky curls onto his side and pulls the comforter a little tighter around him.

"He'll be fine. He's a big boy, Pegs; he ties his own shoelaces and everything," Steve says, with a weak, impish smile. Peggy makes a face at him and lightly steps her heel onto his toes; while she's distracted with preening he reaches around to pinch her butt, and then has to take off before she can retaliate.

"Oh God," Tony mutters once they make it, pink-cheeked and giggling, to the quinjet landing pad very quickly for having chased each other there. "We are still smack dab in the middle of the Ungodly Hours, people. Cheeriness is strictly prohibited."

Peggy makes sure to stick her tongue out at him extra jovially. Sam hands her a paper cup of coffee as a reward.

"Why so foul a mood, Stark?" Thor asks, his voice just a few decibels shy of booming. "Are we not on our way to glorious victory?"

"You better be," Maria says briskly. "All right, now that CapCarter have decided to grace us with their presence..." She presses a few buttons on the tablet in her hand, before lifting it up for the group to view. "Strucker's base is located about two miles due east of Novi Grad. Our contact says the scepter is almost definitely on site. Even if it's not, this place is the largest and most well-stocked of all known Hydra bases. Appropriating its assets is a goal, and the Recovery Team will be waiting to do just that once you take the castle. Beyond that..."

She taps the screen a few times, bringing up grainy surveillance photos of a pair of teenagers. "Leak says that Strucker's got two mutants at the base. Twins, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Orphaned at ten when a shell took out their apartment building. Bounced around between various foster homes and the streets for several years before being _adopted_ ," she balances the tablet on one hand, freeing the other to supply the air quotes, "by Strucker. Pietro's got increased metabolism, improved thermal homeostasis, and total transparency capabilities, meaning he can get up to around cheetah speed, maybe a little faster, and turn invisible. Wanda's gig is neuroelectric interfacing, telekineses, cognitive manipulation..."

"Flash Gordon and Matilda Wormwood, got it," Tony says.

"And it would appear they can communicate telepathically with each other, so long as there isn't any interference." She brings the tablet down. "Apparently Pietro's had his powers since childhood, but Wanda was put under... _considerable stress_ by Strucker in order to activate hers."

"Like that Deadpool guy?" Clint asks.

"...Yeah," Maria says, with a wince in Steve and Peggy's direction. "Strucker joined SHIELD before Zola died, and they...worked together. Closely."

"Jeez, how many more wizard Mengeles do we have to deal with?" Tony mutters.

"Are these hostiles to watch out for?" Steve asks, briskly. "Or hostages to extract?"

"Um...uh-huh," Maria says; Steve snorts at her.

"All right then. Anything else?"

"Nothing beyond what you've come to expect."

"Great. Avengers..." He steps and sweeps his arm back, gesturing to the ramp leading into the quinjet. "Aboard."

"A~nchors aweigh~," Tony mutter-sings as he starts to shuffle up the ramp.

"Pedal to the metal, guys," Rhodey says, hustling in ahead of the others and heading for the cockpit. "It's not a secret that we're allowed into the country now. They're gonna be waiting for us."

Peggy fits herself into one of the seats and straps herself in, Steve and Sam doing the same on either side of her, and Thor beside Sam. Once Steve is settled she taps his hand, and when she has his attention she flicks her gaze across the floor, to where Natasha and Clint are sitting on opposite sides of their rows of seats, Bruce and Tony sandwiched between them.

Steve grimaces. Clint had mentioned that, since what happened in November, his and Laura's relationship with Natasha has been _complicated_ but he hasn't seen them together to assess the situation himself. Deliberate separation like this, especially with both of them facing away from each other, seems indicative of a more dire situation than _complicated_.

"Everyone please return your trays to the upright position; we are clear for take off," Rhodey says, flipping a few switches, and beneath them the quinjet roars to life.

Bucky opens the blinds to watch the jet take off, and breathes deeply, with his diaphragm, like the counselor told him to.

*

"Shit!"

"What's going on?" Steve yells into his comm, over the roar of his motorcycle and Peggy shooting advancing Hydra soldiers.

Rhodey's assessment has proven itself true with a vengeance. Even landing the quinjet ten miles on the opposite side of the city hadn't afforded them the element of surprise, and the perimeter guard's onslaught had started immediately upon the Avengers entering the very edges of their reach. Tony, Rhodey, and Sam had taken to the air; Tony and Rhodey to attack the building, Sam to do his best impression of a carpet-bomber. A blast from the Iron Man suit bouncing harmlessly away from Strucker's fortress had prompted Tony's profanity.

"The central building is protected by some sort of energy shield," JARVIS reports dutifully, on Tony's behalf.

"Well, ain't that just the berries."

Sam lets go of Thor from a few hundred feet in the air; he lands solidly on the back of one Hydra footsoldier, kicks the one coming up behind him squarely in the chest, and sends Mjolnir flying to take out a third. "Loki's scepter must be here, then," he announces into his wrist comm, grabbing a fourth soldier by the head and throwing him facefirst into the snowy ground. "Strucker couldn't mount this sort of defense without it." He holds his hand out for Mjolnir to return to him, and then steps aside, letting her fly past him and into the face of another assailant. "At long last," he says gleefully, as Mjolnir returns to his hand.

Natasha picks up a grenade and lobs it at the vehicle that had dropped it by her; as it explodes behind her she leaps over an embankment, dragging a Hydra soldier down with her and snapping his neck on the landing. Another catches her by the waist and hoists her into the air; she twists in his arms, kicking her way free of him and the soldier approaching to assist him. "At long last is lasting kinda long, you guys."

An arrow flies into the skull of a Hydra agent who tries to make the same leap Natasha had. "Caffeine's startin' to wear off," Clint chimes in.

"I'm sorry, rewind. Ain't that just the what now, Cap?" Tony asks, swooping low over a staircase and blasting it out of its casing, collapsing it and at least twenty Hydra agents.

"The berries." Steve reaches back to tug on Peggy's sleeve; she immediately throws herself off the motorcycle, tucking herself into a ball to land safely as he stands on the pedals and flips the bike over himself. He lands on his feet as the motorcycle sails through the air, taking out the engine of a not-armored-enough vehicle, and covers his face with the shield as it explodes several feet away from him. "What, have you never heard that expression before?"

"No?" Sam interjects, over the gunshots he aims at the soldiers on the ground. "Berries means something else nowadays, Cap."

"... _Sam_."

"I'm sorry, why're we talking about berries?" Rhodey asks, aiming an unfortunately deflected blast at the energy shield around the fortress. "In _any_ context?"

"The berries means something like _fantastic_ or _the best_ ," Peggy says. "For instance..." She grabs an approaching soldier by the head and slams his face down into her knee; the rest of the Avengers hear the crack of his nose breaking and his grunt of pain. " _That_ was the berries. Shit!"

The small battalion that had formed on the ridge above her and Steve is suddenly taken out in a roar of green; the two stragglers that had managed to dodge the Hulk's rampage are swiftly dispatched with Peggy's gun and Steve's shield respectively.

"So does the phrase include all berries?" Sam asks, as a well-aimed headshot fells another Hydra agent. "Or is there, like, a hierarchy? Cranberry being the lowest to blueberry being the highest, how would you rate that KO?"

"I will not tolerate this slander against cranberries," Rhodey announces, aiming for a low spot on the fortress in the hopes that it will prove a weak point; it doesn't, but it at least takes out the grenade launcher he no longer needs to dodge.

"You know I'm a Burberry man, myself," Tony chimes in, aiming for the first launcher's brother on the other side of the fortress.

"When I was in London last Jane introduced me to an establishment known as Pinkberry," Thor offers, as Mjolnir fractures a man's rib cage. "Is it named after a plant indigenous to this world? If so I offer it up as the berry worthy of highest esteem."

"I've created a monster," Steve mutters, throwing the shield so it bounces off of several trees and goes sailing into the stomach of the man leading three people in his direction, sending all of them flying back and landing in a heap.

"As amusing as this banter is, ladies and gentlemen, the city is taking fire," JARVIS interrupts, and indeed several of the projectiles missing Iron Man and War Machine are falling well outside the treeline.

"Send in the Iron Legion," Tony orders immediately, and back at the quinjet an array of robots whirs into life.

"If someone could take out that bunker over there," Natasha chimes in, as the sound of the Legion soaring over and descending into the city fills the air, "that'd be worth at least a honeyberry, I'm sure."

"On it," Clint says immediately; the white noise after he clips his words closed is slightly palpable even to those distracted by the fight. He's got a path clear of soldiers from this angle and he takes it, coming to hide behind a tree just wide enough to shield his back. A peek around the trunk shows no obstruction between him and the heart of the bunker, and he yanks an arrow from his quiver, positions it, lets it fly, and ducks behind the tree once more, waiting for the boom.

It never comes.

Clint allows himself to wonder what happened for a millisecond before he whips another arrow out and takes aim again. This time he doesn't even get the chance to fire before something plows into his right shoulder with enough force to topple him. He rolls to his feet as a young man's voice inquires "You didn't see that coming?" in a darkly amused whisper, and he has just enough time to see the black of his attacker's eyes before the boy disappears.

Then the bunker fires, and Clint can't register anything besides pain.

"Clint!" Natasha yelps, and as Steve turns in the direction Natasha is running something blows right by him, spinning him off balance and knocking him to the ground. Peggy turns on her heel, aiming at where she expects Steve's assailant to be, and is greeted with thin air.

"Mutant on the field," Steve groans, as Peggy's eye catches movement and she aims for it, only for her initial target to be replaced by another Hydra goon.

"Hawkeye's hit!" A missile flies over Natasha's head as she drops to the ground and slides through the mud to Clint's prone, struggling body. A bloody wound the size of two fists is burned into his side, and Natasha rips out a roll of guaze from one of the compartments of her utility belt, unwinding it around her fingers to create a pad.

"I remember this," Clint slurs deliriously, as he feels her hand press the dressing against his wound; his other drifts weakly towards hers, but doesn't quite make it. "This wasn't so bad, right?"

"Anybody wanna take out that bunker?" Natasha barks into her comm.

As if on cue, the Hulk bounds into her field of vision and takes two running steps into the bunker; the concrete shatters under the force, and the last few missiles shoot off impotently into the sky.

"Thank you."

"Guys, we really need to get inside!" Steve grinds out, smashing the edge of the shield down into someone's head; Peggy slides underneath him to knock a second attacker off balance, leaps to her feet, and shoots him before he can get back up.

"We're _tryin'!_ " Rhodey yells back; his armor takes a hit from a thankfully not very powerful missile as he swoops low, and he retaliates with two shots that destroy the launcher and the people attending it.

"JARVIS, you got a power source on this shield yet?" Tony asks.

"There is a possible power source along the north tower," JARVIS responds.

"On it," Rhodey announces, and he takes aim. "He shoots..." The fortress shakes violently as the blast lands, and the sheen of transluscent blue that had been covering it flickers out of existence. "He scores!"

"Hawkeye's hit bad, guys," Natasha announces; blood is seeping through the gauze to stain her palm, and she ignores her heart dropping down to pound in her stomach. "He's gonna need evac."

"I'm on my way," Sam replies, swooping low and shooting three Hydra agents out of his way as he does. "I'll bring him back to the jet."

"Thor," Steve says into his comm, "you stay out here and finish this fight alongside the Hulk and Widow. Carter and I'll help Stark and Rhodes take the castle and secure the scepter."

The Hulk roars, acknowledging that Steve spoke at least, if he can't exactly understand what was said.

"Captain, if we might provide a thunderclap before you go?" Thor asks, and Steve can't help but grin.

"My pleasure." Thor is about thirty feet in the distance; Steve rushes towards him as Peggy covers her husband. As soon as she catches up to him she ducks under the shield Steve has raised up; Thor slams Mjolnir down against it, and the resulting shock wave knocks twenty advancing Hydra agents to the ground.

Pietro is thrown up against a tree with the force of the thunderclap, and he knows he's been freed by the immense pain radiating through his skull.

Wanda gets his message, and the man who's just unlocked her cell door screams as all the bones in his hands break at once.

Floors above her Tony and Rhodey smash through a window; Tony soars ahead towards an open door as Rhodey covers him, picking off the men firing uselessly at them. The doors begin closing, and Tony speeds through them just before they can shut him out. A mild repulsor blast knocks away what looks like a scientist from the line of computers he's standing at, and Tony drifts to the floor to the dulcet sounds of the Hydra soldiers behind him yelling and then going silent.

"Sentry mode," he orders, and the frontispieces of the suit peel away to let Tony step out, before it reforms and raises its right palm, repulsor ready. Tony fiddles with the left palm and, when it appears, plucks a flash drive out of it. "I want it all, JJ," Tony says, as he pops the flash drive into the biggest and probably most well-stocked computer. "And if you could do an infrared scan of the room while you're at it, that'd be aces."

"Don't you mean _the berries_?" JARVIS responds, as beams of red lights from the suit's eyes fan out around the room.

"If I could give you a high-five right now, I would."

"I appreciate that, Sir. Now, regarding the wall to your left, I'm reading steel reinforcement and an air current."

"Take care of that for me?" Tony asks, and a weak repulsor blast does just that. "I can always count on you."

The formerly hidden door opens up to a staircase, and a quick glance down it reveals a foyer leading into an alcove. The suit follows behind him to guard the doorway as he descends quietly down the steps and into the room.

"Shit!"

"Everything all right?" Steve immediately responds.

"...Y-...yeah," Tony replies as he stares up at the ceiling, willing his heart rate to slow back down. "You guys know the, uh, the whale room at the Museum of Natural History?"

"What about it?"

"Same thing where I am, except instead of a blue whale it's a...space whale. Loki's alien space whale just...hanging from the ceiling, chilling. It's still dead, don't worry, just...spooked me. Lemme see what else is here..."

He tiptoes his way to the side of the creature, a small part of him afraid of drawing its attention. He chooses to focus on the humanoid bodies lying on the tables around him--all of them metallic and mechanical, to his immense relief--and he picks the arm of one up for further inspection when a blue glint catches his eye.

"I have eyes on the prize, you guys," he says, glee and residual fear mixing to create something giddy-sounding as he heads for the blue light. "Scepter in hand in three...two...one..."

His hand wraps around the gold handle, and the creature above him stirs to life.

Tony whips around, yanking the scepter off its stand; the two clumsy movements combine to trip him up, and he lands on the floor, hard. The creature bellows and Tony, like a child, drops the scepter to cover his ears, yanking his knees up close to his chest and ducking his face behind them. The animal swoops low, and his scream catches in his throat when it soars up, high above him; he clambers onto his hands and knees and then stands up as he watches it fly away from him.

"Tony! _Tony!_ "

"Pepper?" Tony calls out; the voice had echoed to him, close and far away all at once, and the creature's trajectory leads his eye to the distance, where Avengers Tower stands above the New York City skyline. "What the fuck, what the _absolute fuck_...Pepper!"

The animal screeches again, making Tony flinch; the movement jerks his attention to the ground, and after three seconds of staring his whole body begins to tremble.

Interspersed among the wreckage of New York City are the corpses of his teammates, and there is nowhere he can look where another one hasn't fallen. There, Sam, one of his wings torn off, the tip stabbed through his chest, standing straight up like a monument to his death. There, Bruce, draped over the side of a piece of asphalt that had been torn up from the road, his neck bent back at an impossible angle, blood dripping from his mouth. Clint slumped lifeless over Natasha's prone body, she with an arrow to the heart and he with a single gunshot wound to the head; Thor burnt beyond all recognition but for Mjolnir lying helplessly on the grounds inches away from his hand. War Machine is at Tony's feet; Tony drops to his knees and scrambles to tear off the bent faceplate, and when he does there's a mass of blood and skin tears where Rhodey's face should be; part of his skull has caved in, piercing his eye, revealing a peek of his brain.

Tony cries out, feeling bile rise from his stomach, but he's cut off when metal fingers close around his throat and lift him, onto his feet, into the air. Bucky is holding him up, strangling him with all the strength he has left; beyond the Soldier's convulsing body Tony can see Steve, body flat and spread-eagle and unnaturally still on the ground, and Peggy, on her side and curved almost elegantly backwards now that her spine is in three pieces.

"Why didn't you..." Bucky rasps at him, his fingers crushing Tony's windpipe and this is it, this is how Tony dies, grieving and suffocating just like his mother. "Why didn't you..."

Bucky's knees give out and he collapses onto them; Tony stumbles back once his feet touch the ground, putting up his hands defensively near his throat, but Bucky is no longer moving at all.

"Tower to Stark, _come in_ ," Maria's voice, covered in static, rings in Tony's ear. "Stark we need you, _please_ , Stark--"

"Tony!" Pepper screams, over Maria and now Fury and now the chorus of voices joining them. "Tony, please! _Tony!_ "

The creature smacks its tail against the Tower, and the building shatters into a dust storm of glass and steel.

Tony wakes up with a jolt that nearly makes him drop the scepter.

Wanda ducks further back into the shadows, her heart pounding nearly as hard as Tony's. She watches, not daring to smile and barely to breathe, until Tony is halfway back up the stairs, the scepter clutched protectively to his chest, and once he disappears the relief and elation makes a tear roll down her cheek.

She has to find Pietro immediately. She wants to tell him this news in person.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: References to torture and dehumanization; Holocaust/Nazi/antisemitic imagery; medical procedures incl. references to nonconsensual human experimentation; anxiety; references to last chapter's hallucination/body horror/gore**

"Well. If it isn't Hydra's Employee of the Month."

"You got me bang to rights, Captain," Strucker responds, casually. Once Tony and Rhodey had broken into the building, he had correctly surmised that defeat was imminent, and he and the techs had started deleting every digital file they could get their hands on. That ended quickly enough when several gunshots from the doorway felled his support staff. "Though technically I work for SHIELD."

"We did some internal restructuring," Peggy says, her weapon aimed at his chest. "You might want to check on your employment status. Quite a lot of you got the sack."

Strucker snorts, and then glances to the side as if looking for something. "I notice you haven't brought it with you."

"Where's the scepter?" Steve demands, his voice slipping dangerously slow.

"SHIELD never did utilize proper resource management. If you have a valuable asset, you ought to actually _use_ it--"

His attempt at distraction fails, and his hand, reaching behind him for the keyboard, falls to the floor with the rest of him when the shield bounces off his face with a noise Steve would love to take pleasure in. " _Where's the scepter?_ "

"Oh, I see," Strucker continues; if he can't get in a hit he can at least still cause a wound. "It needs a reset, doesn't it? The scepter _is_ far more efficient than the chair--"

Over comms the other Avengers hear a gunshot, and then a man screaming in pain as his kneecap shatters.

"Strucker's uncooperative," Peggy reports coolly, though her guts feel as hot as the muzzle of her gun.

"Hardly need him anymore," Tony replies, his voice oddly wooden, but Steve and Peggy don't notice it for how badly their insides are shaking.

"We're locked down out here," Natasha reports.

"All enemies dead or downed," Thor confirms.

"Good," Steve says, finally blinking back into the present. "Rendezvous at the base of the North Tower. Falcon, how's Hawkeye?"

"All set up and ready for evac," Sam responds. "I called Dr. Cho; she's on her way up from DC with the Cradle."

"Good. We're gonna need you for transportation detail."

"Y'all are the biggest buncha scrubs, I swear to God--"

"I'll call in the Recovery Team," Steve continues pointedly. "Romanoff, find Banner. Time for a Lullaby."

"Rogers-s-s-s-s that," Natasha responds, and she can practically hear the face Steve makes at her.

Bruce isn't hard to find; he's where all the trees and snow are being torn up and thrown around now that there aren't any more enemy agents to attack. Natasha approaches carefully, andante, until she only has to slightly raise her voice to be heard over his noise.

"[Baju-bajuški-baju...](http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=1035)" a tree goes sailing somewhere to her left, and the Hulk whirls around to face her. "Ne ložisja na kraju." Natasha crouches on a snow bank, making herself small but keeping eye contact. "Prijdet seren’kmj volčok." The Hulk growls, almost roars, but when he starts to approach her it's not as aggressive as it might have been. "I ukusit za bočok / Baju-bajuški-baju." He's close enough now that a harsh breath blows the loose strands of her bound hair away from her face; undaunted, she offers her hand to him. "Ne ložisja na kraju." Operant conditioning takes over, and the Hulk lays the back of his own hand over her palm. "Prijdet seren’kmj volčok." Her other hand comes up slowly, so he can see it, and she lightly taps her index and middle fingers on his inner arm, sliding them gently from inner elbow to wrist. "I ukusit za bočok."

He jerks away from her suddenly, and she rises as he stumbles away, smiling faintly. The Lullaby had been in the works ever since the Loki mission had ended, with Natasha and Bruce meeting a handful of times a month over the past few years to fine-tune it. Natasha doesn't remember why she knows this song, but that it should aid in a transformation seems fitting to her.

The Hulk lets out a few more quasi-roars as he trips, but they grow fainter and fainter as he loses more and more of his footing. One last tree, an infant one, falls under the weight of his hand, but by the time he and it hit the ground, it's Bruce Banner who lands in the snow.

"How're you feeling?" Natasha calls, once the man sits up. "How're you feeling?" she repeats, after he's obviously reoriented himself and she's moved closer to him.

"Ah...depends," he says sheepishly, squinting up at her. "How'd the Hulk make out today?" he asks into his comm, designed, like his clothes, to expand along with him.

"The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of your victims," Thor reports cheerily, and then, after he realizes his gaffe: "But...not with the screams of the dead, of course." Bruce groans. "No, no, they're...wounded screams. Mainly...complaining of...sprained deltoids and...and gout."

"Gimme strength, Lord," Rhodey mutters.

"Well, in more _encouraging_ news," Natasha interrupts pointedly. "The Lullaby worked quicker than ever."

"Yeah, it seems to work best on conjunction with a controlled transformation," Bruce murmurs, his agreement perfunctory.

"And hey," Natasha tries again, "if you hadn't been there, we would've actually had a casualty for once. My--" Whatever she'd been about to say hangs in the air for a heavy second. "We would've had to change Barton's status from _Team Mascot_ to _Forever In Our Hearts_."

Bruce smiles grimly up at her. "You know. Sometimes what I wanna hear isn't exactly what I wanna hear."

Natasha huffs a small laugh at him, to which he supplies a weak smile, and offers her hand once again. "C'mon."

He takes the offer, and Natasha takes the opportunity to let the help linger for a beat longer than necessary. She lets go once his polite look turns bewildered, and looks away as if sweeping for enemy agents to kill any questioning.

It wasn't...unpleasant, his hand in hers. She could get used to it. Soon. Hopefully.

*

The Iron Legion makes it back to the quinjet at about the same time the Avengers do, but in decidedly worse condition. All of them bear scuff marks left by rocks and other projectiles; the glass eyeplate of one of them is completely shattered while most of the others are cracked, and several of them are spray-painted with swastikas; **FASCISTS GO HOME** serving as the piece de resistance across the belly of the largest one.

"Hail Horsefeathers, I guess," Tony says, out of habit. Saying the actual phrase, even after dipping it enough sarcasm that it drips on the floor, has been a trigger for Bucky ever since he came back. The censored version, however, makes him laugh.

("We used to say _horsefeathers_ when we were kids so we wouldn't get in trouble for swearing," Steve explained once. "I don't know if he really remembers it, or if it's just...instinct or something, but...")

"You know, I remember a time when I didn't see any swastikas," Bruce says. "It was a good time."

"Can't relate," Steve mutters flatly; Peggy scoffs, and Bruce has the grace to look apologetically sympathetic.

"I don't understand," Thor says as he surveys the vandalism, frowning. "Did we not liberate these people from a great evil?"

"I guess some people think we didn't," Rhodey murmurs, as JARVIS directs the Iron Legion into the jet ahead of the Avengers. "See, pal," he continues, when Thor sends him a flabbergasted look, "even... _phenomenally terrible_ people can do good things for their country. Or at least make it _seem_ like they are, in any case. So when you take those people away, their country...might not appreciate it."

"It is beyond my comprehension how Midgard has lasted so long," Thor says, as the Legion clear the way and the Avengers begin boarding. "There are enough troubles just considering the existence of nine _realms_ all split into competing races. For one's own homeworld to be fractured in the same way...how can you maintain the peace when the people's hearts aren't united?"

"That's the problem, buddy; we can't," Clint says, glancing up at his returning teammates from where he's stretched out on the Murphy cot. His shirt's been removed and the emergency dressing replaced with fresh bandages, to stave off infection, and an IV attached to his arm is keeping him hydrated.

"Look at you," Peggy teases. "All set up in the honeymoon suite."

"Samuel T. Wilson doesn't screw around," Sam says, heading directly for the cockpit. "He'd also like to get the hell out of here before some Sokovian nationals show up, so if everyone could take their seats..."

"Hey Tony, should Pepper be worried?" 

"Huh?" Tony blinks back into focus, glancing across the jet to where Natasha is seated opposite him.

She gestures to the scepter, which hasn't left Tony's death grip since he met them at the base of the North Tower. "The way you're holding onto that thing, you look like you're gonna start whispering sweet nothings to it."

"Well it _is_ a very attractive WMD," Tony parries, and Natasha rolls her eyes at him. That's good. That means things are normal. More pertinently, it means Natasha is still alive. "And as much as I've enjoyed our little raiding parties, I'm glad we've pillaged our last village in search of it."

"As am I," Thor says. "I will sleep far more easily knowing that this is safe in my father's vault in Asgard, where it belongs."

"Ah...we might want to hang onto it for a little while longer," Bruce says sheepishly; the fact the Tony looks like he wants to kiss him is a little unnerving, but he presses onward. "Just until we know what all it's been used for. We might need it to...undo its own effects."

Peggy winds her arms around one of Steve's, pressing close to his side. She can hear Strucker's words dancing through his head as much as they are through her own. "I'm not precisely wild over the idea of keeping something with mind-control powers in the Tower."

"Me neither," Clint pipes up; Natasha starts as if to rise to her feet, but wilts after Clint seems to not need immediate help. "Swear to God that thing's making my headache worse."

"You think you'll be okay if we keep it in my lab?" Tony asks. "Me and Banner can give it a work-up while you guys scour the archives."

"So long as it stays there," Peggy says, and Clint makes an agreeing noise.

"My friends," Thor says gravely, "this scepter is too dangerous to leave within reach of every Tyr, Njall, and Gunnar."

"Gimme...three days," Tony says, a tad hurriedly. "I'll even give the staff a long weekend off and sleep in the lab with it, if it makes you feel better."

Thor doesn't look fully convinced, but nods. "All right. But only under those conditions."

"Awesome. Three days to Bill Nye this sucker up, and then we can throw it, and you, a proper good-bye party."

"Now _that_ I like the sound of," Thor says, his eyes sparkling despite residual worry. "A victory should be honored with revels. Perhaps I can use one of the three days to journey to London and entice Jane away from her work in order to celebrate with us..."

"You do that. Tell her it'll be the berries."

"Shut up, Tony."

*

Helen, along with her team and an actual gurney, are waiting in the hangar when the quinjet arrives, and once they move forward to transfer Clint over, Bucky reveals himself to have been tucked in behind them.

"You couldn't wait for us to come inside?" Steve teases, even as he and Peggy approach him at a bit of a power walk.

Bucky doesn't respond except to reach out and pull Steve roughly into his arms; he keeps one eye open to watch Peggy and, once she's close enough to do so, catches her shoulder with his left hand and tugs her into the embrace.

"Yikes," Tony comments from a few feet behind them. "You gotta be careful with the needy ones, CapCarter, you'll never get rid of 'em..."

Peggy responds with a rude hand gesture before running a hand over Bucky's hair, and Tony wisely shuts up.

"Is everything okay, Buck?" Steve asks in a low voice; behind him he can hear the other Avengers shuffling out of the jet and pointedly not interrupting. "Did something happen?"

"...No, yeah, I'm fine," Bucky responds, his face hidden in Peggy's shoulder. "Nothing happened, I just..." He brings his shoulders up high and tight as if trying to shrug, but they don't come back down. "I heard one of you got hurt, and..."

"Well we're fine Buck, honest," Steve rushes to assure.

"Not a nick or a scratch on us," Peggy confirms.

"Well yeah, I know _that_ ," Bucky mutters, sounding embarrassed. "They told me it was Clint who got hurt, I just..."

Peggy frees her arms to wrap around and squeeze both her partners, before she urges Bucky to straighten up so she can take her face in his hands and kiss his forehead. "We're okay, darling. Everything's okay."

"You guys got the scepter, right?"

"Indeed we did," Peggy says, trying to sound more confident than they currently feel.

"So you don't...there's not gonna be a need for you to go out on any more missions like this."

"...Well," Steve says, after a moment's uncomfortable pause. "Not for awhile, anyway."

Bucky looks first at Peggy, who bites her lip but doesn't move to contradict her husband, before directing the full force of his crestfallen face at Steve. Steve, for his part, throws an arm around Bucky's shoulder, jostling him in what he hopes isn't a futile gesture.

"C'mon." He presses a kiss to Bucky's temple for good measure. "Let's go make sure Clint's okay."

Bucky loops his right arm through Steve's left, tighter than he knows Steve is comfortable with, and takes Peggy's hand with his free one, in the same vein.

It takes awhile for them to shuffle their way to the Infirmary while so attached, but none of them have the heart to try to free themselves. Most of the rest of the team is already set up by the time they make it there, scattered around the room either in chairs or on their feet; at the center of the room lies Clint in the aptly-named Cradle, as the rectangular contraption bears a striking resemblance to its namesake.

"You sure this'll work?" Natasha is asking as the triad comes through the door.

"Pretending to need this guy really brings the team together," Sam tacks on.

Clint lifts his hand over the side of the Cradle to make sure Sam can see the middle finger he gives him. "I'm the OG bird-themed Avenger, Wilson. Don't you ever forget that."

"To answer your question, Ms. Romanoff, there's no chance of rejection," Helen says loudly, through a laugh. "The Cradle is using his own genetic information. His cells don't realize that they're bonding with simulacrum."

"She's basically 3D-printing a skin graft," Bruce explains, for the benefit of the newcomers.

"And you know, this is only one of my beta machines," Helen continues, with a pointed glance at Bucky. "If you were to, say, come to my main lab in Seoul, the tech there could probably regrow an entire limb."

Bucky rocks back on his heels, also looking at his left arm. Since that day last summer when he, Steve, and Peggy painted the shield onto his shoulder, it's become a veritable metal canvas: from Veterans Day, the logo he had sported on his SSR jacket; from a heavy snow day in December when they were all bored, a paw print colored in orange-and-black tiger stripes; from New Year's, two stick figures, one a grown man and one a little girl, drawn in green Sharpie and tagged by RIKKI BARNES AGE 4 to mark the first and so far only time that she's seen her great-great-uncle; and from Valentines Day, a thin gold band painted around the base of his ring finger.

("We'll fill in the rest of it when we're...whenever you feel ready for it.")

"What do you say, Sergeant Barnes?" Helen asks. "We've only run trials on mice, but they've all been successful, so if you want to try..."

Bucky brings his right hand up, ghosting it over his metal arm from shoulder to wrist, and holds back a shudder at the thought of being the first human trial of anything ever again. "Thank you for the offer, ma'am, but...I kinda like this arm."

Helen offers a good-natured, one-shouldered shrug. "Suit yourself."

"Of course he likes the arm, it's a work of art," Tony says, bustling back into the room. "Even with all the graffiti." Steve makes a face at him, which Tony misses because his focus is on Clint's monitor. "Oh no, he's flatlining. Call it. Time of death?"

"No, no," Clint says, waving his free hand in Tony's direction. "I'm gonna live forever. Then I'm gonna write a book. _Clint Barton: Life in Plastic_."

"It's [fanta~stic](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhrYis509A)..."

"It's not plastic, Mr. Barton," Helen laughs. "It's completely organic. It's essentially a clone of you. Your own girlfriend wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"Oh, well I don't have one of those anymore."

"That I can't fix," Helen banters, but her voice falters under the heavy silence that suddenly takes over the room, and from the corner of her eye she can see Natasha unceremoniously get up and walk out the door. 

"So Helen," Tony says, after a long moment of no one moving or speaking except for sideways glances. "While we're all feeling extremely comfortable and relaxed, we're throwing a goodbye party for Thor on Sunday night. Can we expect you? I assure you that it'll be the berries."

"Shut _up_ , Tony."

"Unlike you, I don't have a ton of time for parties," Helen parries, turning her nose up. Then, after a moment: "Will...um...Maria be there?"

The room breaks out in a relieved, childlike chorus of "Ooh!" as Helen blushes and buries her face in her clipboard.

"No stress, Helen. This [matchmaker matchmaker](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=59Hj7bp38f8) will make you a match. I'll even find you a find _and_ catch you a catch."

"Don't worry, Dr. Cho; we have no idea what he's talking about either," Steve pipes up.

Tony rounds on Steve with a gasp, pressing his hand to his heart for dramatic effect. " _Steven Grant Rogers_. I am...honestly, genuinely surprised. All right, your job before Sunday is to watch _[Fiddler on the Roof](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler_on_the_Roof)_."

"Yes, _sir_."

"And Bruce," Tony says, turning towards Dr. Banner, "your job is to accompany me to my lab."

"Any time before Sunday?" Bruce mumbles, but he gets to his feet, following Tony out the door as he beckons him.

"JARVIS," Tony says, as soon as they're both safely on the other side of a closed door, "Stealth Mode, please."

"Is there a reason why--"

"What've you got on the scepter?" Tony interrupts.

"The scepter is alien," JARVIS replies from the watch-like contraption on Tony's wrist. "There are elements I can't quantify."

"So there're elements you can."

"The jewel seems like a protective casing for something inside. Something remarkably powerful."

"Like a reactor?" Bruce pipes up, his curiosity finding a new place to go.

"More like a computer," JARVIS responds. "It's not quite the same, but it almost seems as though I'm deciphering code."

"Have a visual up for when we make it to the lab," Tony says.

"As you wish, sir."

"Is there a reason we're in stealth mode?" Bruce finally gets the chance to ask.

"Please hold all questions until the end."

Bruce raises his eyebrows, but stays obediently quiet as Tony leads him down a few floors and through a handful of security measures, until they finally come to the lab, and further questioning is replaced by a "Wow."

"My thoughts exactly," JARVIS says of the large, effervescent blue matrix floating in the middle of the lab, its line and circles pulsing and floating before their eyes.

"Bring yourself up for comparison, JarJar," Tony says, and a smaller, orange matrix pops up beside the blue one. "Aha. Meesa thought so. What differences you see here, Bruce Almighty?"

"Well, it's...this one, the scepter one, it's...it's definitely the more sophisticated of the two," Bruce says, a little dazedly. "No offense, JARVIS."

"I shall endeavor to take none, Dr. Banner."

"But...Tony, look at this," Bruce continues, no less wonderstruck, as he reaches out to "touch" the hologram. "It's like...it's like neurons firing."

"Down in Strucker's lab I saw some pretty advanced robotics work, even by my standards," Tony says, and Bruce finally tears his eyes away from the blue matrix. "They sank the data, but I think it's pretty obvious what door he was knocking on."

"...Artificial intelligence," Bruce says, awe sliding off his face, to be replaced by a frown.

"This could be it, Bruce," Tony says, like a kid in a candy store. "This could be the key to Ultron."

Bruce raises an eyebrow. "I thought you gave up on that."

"Since when do I give up on anything? What if we harness this power, apply it to the Iron Legion..."

"That's a massive "what if", Tony."

"We're scientists. Our job is "if". What if we tucked the whole world in, safe and sound, for one last time?"

"I'm sorry, is that not exactly what Hydra was attempting to do last year? I seem to recall hearing something about weaponized global surveillance on the news..."

"No, it's _not_ , in fact, exactly what Hydra was attempting to do last year. Because Ultron faces outward, so that the next time aliens decide they're [coming up, they can't get this party started](https://m.youtube.com/results?q=pink%20get%20the%20party%20started&sm=1). It's not Insight, it's...outsight. _Vision_ , if you will. A suit of armor surrounding the whole world. So that the only people threatening peace and stability will be, well, people."

"All right," Bruce concedes, nodding slowly. "I see the difference you're going for here. You plannin' on letting the rest of the team in on this?"

"Ah...no."

" _Tony._ "

"No, because I know their minds are gonna go exactly where yours just did, and I don't want the _man is not meant to meddle_ entree with a side order of _you're tampering with powers you can't hope to control_. We've only got three days with the [little guy that lives in a blue world](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc), and I don't want to waste it beating Cap and Thor and oh my God _Rhodey_ away from the lab with a stick. You wanna know what else I saw down in Strucker's lab? What other vision this scepter gave me? You dead."

Bruce's mouth, open in readiness to protest, closes abruptly.

"Yeah. _You_ , of all people. Neck snapped in half like a twig. And not just you, either. The whole gang. Barton, Nat, Wilson, Thor, Team America, Rhodey, even Hill and Fury, fuck, even _Pepper_...wiped out. Gone." He snaps his fingers for emphasis before they become too weak and shaky to be of use. "Not on my watch. I wanna make it so you can spend your time sitting on a beach somewhere turning tan instead of green. So Barnes can leave the Tower without having a panic attack. So Pep and I can even start to _think_ about maybe one day starting a family, and I'm not gonna let _any_ of you talk me out of making that happen. _What if_ we had peace in our time, Bruce? Because you and I are the ones who can make that happen."

Bruce stares at Tony for a long moment, empathy and anxiety duking it out on his face as he considers the point Tony is making and what Tony is capable of doing even if Bruce ratted on him to the team, before he finally sighs in a way that he hopes will set the stage for his influence.

" _Research_ , Tony. I will help you _research_ this thing, and if something viable comes of it, we'll talk more about the Ultron program _then_."

"I knew you were my favorite Avenger," Tony says, a broad grin breaking out on his face.

"I'm not so sure I'm honored to accept the designation," Bruce mumbles, but if Tony hears him, he makes no indication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who haven't read the previous works in the series, Bucky's Hydra arm was removed and replaced by one Tony built, which is why he has positive feelings towards it. ~~highkey dislike portrayals of Bucky where he's inexplicably emotionally attached to his Hydra arm~~
> 
> I thought about using Tili Tili Bom for the Lullaby, but no one seems to know if it's a real lullaby or if it was written for a movie, so I went with a confirmed folk song instead.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Anxiety; canon-typical violence**

"Can you guys come help me with this? I found this recipe online and I wanna try it out, but it's kinda elaborate..."

"I think we should brush French Toast; she's looking kinda raggedy. Can you hold onto her? We should probably do Waffles, too, when we're done..."

"No, no, you guys stay in bed. I'll take care of breakfast; don't worry about it. Seriously you guys, _sleep_ , I can handle it."

"D'you mind sittin' with me for a bit? I'm feeling kinda...kinda jittery. Could use the company."

"Hey, so I looked up that movie Tony told us about. It looks pretty interesting. It's like three hours long, but we don't have any plans, so...you guys want nachos or popcorn? I can make both, if you want. Actually, yeah, I'll make both."

Distraction is the oldest trick in Bucky's book, and with his former slickness still not fully recovered, what he's trying to do is painfully transparent from the outset. Not that it's a _chore_ for Steve and Peggy to sit on the couch and let Bucky stretch his legs across their laps as he reads. Nor is it precisely torture to have Bucky drape himself over them when they go to bed, even though he does so strategically, so that they'll be trapped if they happen to wake up first, or if he does but pretends not to have. Bucky's suggestion that they shower together Sunday morning is also a welcome event, even if it ends with the sliding glass door getting knocked off the runner, a small lake on the bathroom floor, and Bucky joking that his left leg will never be the same afterwards.

Still, three days without a change of scenery or any fresh air at all (their windows are still sealed and reinforced; a year is not enough time to take them off suicide watch) is a bit much, and by early Sunday evening Steve is gearing up to gently but firmly insist that they be allowed out of the suite when he walks into the bedroom to find Bucky sitting at Peggy's vanity, already dressed in clothes fit to be seen by the public and putting on mascara ("You have such beautiful eyes, Bucky; you should bring them out," Pepper advised once, and since then it's been his most heavily-used product).

"I know I can't keep you guys to myself forever," Bucky tries to say light-heartedly, despite his lowered voice and head.

Positive reinforcement comes in the form of bright smiles and kisses and the dress Peggy changes into (which, ironically, almost prompts them to stay in anyway).

"...so I take the tank, I fly it right up to the general's palace, I drop it at his feet and I go "Boom! You looking for this?"" Rhodey is saying, as the triad makes their way into one of the Tower's ballrooms by way of the bar, where Rhodey has gathered Tony, Thor, and Maria around him in a loose circle. Their fear that they had missed too much of the setup to appreciate the punchline is assuaged when no one responds. ""Boom, are you--" why do I even talk to you guys. Everywhere else, that story bangs."

"Oh, is, is that it?" Thor asks, blinking.

"...Yeah, that's it. It's a _War Machine in the Army_ story."

"Oh! Well then. That's, that's quite amusing. Highly remarkable, for a mortal."

" _For a mortal_ , he says. Thanks, bro. I see why Jane didn't bother showing up."

"Oh, she's not here?" Peggy asks, alerting the rest of the group to their presence.

"Alas, no," Thor says, sadly. "Despite her happiness to see me, she is apparently on the verge of an important discovery. I could not persuade her to leave her work for the sake of a celebration, even for a little while."

"Well, hopefully she'll get to see Pepper for a little bit," Tony offers. "My inarguably better half is stuck in London negotiating some real estate on the company's behalf, so she will not be joining us, either."

"No Jane, no Pepper," Maria says dejectedly, shaking her head. "It's a good thing you decided to show up to this brodeo, Peggy. We're decidedly outnumbered."

"Well if it's feminine company you want, Ms. Hill, may I point you in the direction of..." Tony rests his arm on the small of Maria's back as he scans the room for his target, "a certain Dr. Helen Cho, who may I just say is looking quite lovely in that blue cocktail dress. Blue's your favorite color, right? I hope I didn't advise her wrongly..."

"Stark!"

"Rhodey, if you could be so chivalrous..."

"[Fly with me~ lesbian seagull](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xPTXVqETBM4)," Rhodey croons, taking Maria by the arm and pulling her into the room proper even as she splutters token protests.

"The future is weird," Bucky says. "Good weird," he amends, once all eyes turn to him.

"Yeah?" Tony asks. "Would you say it's... _the berries?_ "

"Oh my _God_ , Tony."

"Tap-tap-tap." Peggy feels a finger on her shoulder with every word, and she turns around to see a familiar smiling face.

"Sharon!"

"Oh yeah, Sharon's here, yay," Tony deadpans, as the two women throw their arms around each other.

"I'm only here for five minutes," Sharon says. "I have a train to catch back to DC. I just wanted to let you know that I'm back in the States and it's safe to contact me once again. And also, you're welcome."

"How do you mean?" Peggy asks, quirking her head.

"Who do you think your contact in Sokovia was?" Sharon asks, tapping the side of her nose. "I didn't want you to worry!" she yelps, when she sees twin _You should have told us_ frowns painted on Steve and Peggy's faces. "You have enough on your plates."

"We still want to know what's going on with you, Sharon," Steve admonishes, as Bucky figures out that she's talking at least partly about him.

"Well I'll keep that in mind, _Dad_ ," Sharon returns, but her eyeroll is just affectionate enough to prevent an argument. "Okay, I really _do_ have to head out if I'm gonna catch this train. I will give," she hugs Peggy tightly, "Grandpa your love, and," she supplies a slightly less firm embrace to Steve, "we will see you for Memorial Day." She comes to Bucky, and raises her arms in offering; he flashes her a smile reminiscent of his old charm, and she gives him a brief but not insincere hug. "Good seeing you, for like two seconds."

"You too, Shar."

"Text me when you get home!" Peggy calls after her when she hurries out of the room, waving her good-byes to anyone who notices her exit. 

"You can take the girl out of SHIELD, but you can't take SHIELD out of the girl, I guess," Steve mutters.

"God, just read her diary, why don't you," Tony mutters, over the little ball of guilt that suddenly appears in his stomach. "Relax. Here." Tony pats the barrel that's been sitting on the bar next to them. "Thor brought the good stuff."

"Oh, is this what you gave us for our wedding?" Peggy asks, as Tony moves to fetch a few shot glasses.

"Better," Thor says, grinning. "This is Akvavit. It was aged for a thousand years in barrels built from the wreckage of Brunilda's fleet, and it's meant to be drunk by only the stoutest of immortal hearts."

"So Barnes." Tony sets the first glass in Bucky's hand. "I think you could use this."

"Cheers," Bucky says, and tosses it back before Peggy or Steve can say anything. He coughs as it skips its burning way down his throat, bringing a laugh out of the group when he looks at them with a pinched expression. "Didn't people used to make this in their bathtubs?" he asks, affecting a wheeze for good measure.

"Prohibition was a dark time in American history," Tony says gravely. "Thankfully we live in a more enlightened age. Now go. Go have a ring-a-ding-ding at this clambake, or whatever you geriatrics do."

"Are you happy?" Steve deadpans. "Like, are you proud of that?"

"To be honest I was hoping you'd show up _just_ so I could say it."

Peggy takes a controlled but deep sip of the shot Tony had poured for her, and then sets the glass upside-down on his head. "Well. If someone could see me to the dance floor, I could get to ring-a-ding-dinging."

"Me first," Bucky says, with the tiniest bit of a slur, and Peggy squeals as he wraps his metal arm around her waist; in one fluid movement Bucky plucks Steve's shot out of his hand, downs it, and hauls Peggy to the middle of the dance floor amid cheers from the nearby partygoers.

Tony glances at Steve with his eyebrows raised; Steve rolls his eyes and begins making his way over to the pool table where Clint and Sam look to be starting a game, and Thor follows once he sees what Steve's plan is. Somewhere to the right a cloud of laughter goes up; Rhodey has repeated his story to a group of former SHIELD agents who now supply support to the Avengers, garnering an apparently much warmer reception. Tony takes an empty shot glass and affords it just a drop of Akvavit, enough to settle his jangling nerves, and wanders off in Rhodey's direction.

Bruce has been hiding out in the periphery, waiting for his chance to approach the bar. As much as he likes Tony, he's needed a break from his company for about two and a half days now, and his own little ball of guilt has made actually socializing at the party difficult. He can get a little tipsy without risking a Code Green, and he has the drink he needs very firmly in mind as he makes his way to the bar; he's so focused on the thought of it that he doesn't notice Natasha hustling her way towards him until she slides in behind the counter a second ahead of him.

"What can I get for ya?" she asks, winking coquettishly.

"Well, well, well I don't know," Bruce stutters, caught off guard, and Natasha fetches two martini glasses. "How about an explanation for, uh...an explanation for..." She acquires a bottle of gin next. "How a nice girl like you ended up, um, ended up..." A shaker and a bottle of vermouth. "Working in a, a, a place like this."

"You know how the song goes," Natasha says, scooping ice from the cooler into the mixer. "Some fella done me wrong."

Something in Bruce's brain shorts out as Natasha continues nonchalantly putting the martini mix together. "Maybe...maybe you got lousy taste in men?"

"Nah." Natasha caps her mixer and begins shaking it. "He's not so bad. Got a temper..." Satisfied, she pours one glass, "but underneath it all he's marshmallow fluff." She pours a second one, and pushes it across the counter to Bruce, who picks it up with a polite smile. "Truth is, there's no one else like him. All my friends are fighters, and here's this guy who spends his whole life avoiding the fight, 'cause he knows he'll win."

"Well that's, that's, that's certainly something," Bruce mumbles into the lip of his glass.

"He's also a big dumb dork," Natasha says, and Bruce splutters into his drink. "I dig it. So what do you think?" She sets her elbows on the counter and leans her face into her hands, and Bruce could swear that she bats her eyelashes at him. "Should I run with this?"

"Well." Bruce glances away, desperately avoiding eye contact. "Well that depends, I mean, what did...what did he do to you that was...so wrong, to you?"

"Not a thing," Natasha says huskily, and from the corner of her eye she can see Steve making his way back to the bar. "But never say never." She winks, a little heavily, and straightens up, nodding at Steve as he approaches and turning away pointedly, leaving before he can get close enough to talk to her.

"This isn't what I ordered," Bruce mumbles, after a moment.

"So you have no idea what the hell's going on here, either?"

"I have never, once, _ever_ thought Natasha had any interest in me beyond a professional relationship," Bruce says, pushing his glass towards Steve and reaching over the counter to grab a beer from a nearby cooler. "And...I know I'm not exactly around much, but last I heard she was with someone else? Some _ones_ else?"

"Yeah, last we heard, too," Steve says, frowning. "She seemed pretty happy when we saw them all together on Halloween." Granted, Steve had been distracted with making sure that Bucky was handling the trip--his first interstate travel since coming up to New York from DC, and his first time meeting the Barton family--well, but he thinks he would've noticed Natasha's odd behavior had it been present. "I know that...what happened with the kids was awful, but you'd think that would've..."

"Well, in any case," Bruce says, when Steve trails off. "I have no intention of pursuing this...whatever this is. Clearly Barton isn't over it," he gestures with his head towards the sour look Clint is aiming at nowhere and everywhere, "and frankly I don't think Natasha is, either, if that... _that_ is anything to go by. I don't think it's the brightest idea to put the Other Guy in the middle of a love triangle. Quadrangle? Any sort of romantic entanglement." He smiles weakly at Steve, and takes a sip of his beer. "Speaking of triangles, or triads, rather. How're things with Bucky?"

"Good," Steve says, offering his own weak smile. "Better every day. Mostly." The cold sweat Bucky had woken up in Friday morning, and the pillow he had torn apart in his sleep, notwithstanding. "I mean, he has his...bad moments, but that's to be expected, apparently. That's what everyone says, anyway." Bruce nods, and Steve casts his mind about for something positive to say. "He's getting more independent, which Peg and I are real happy about. We were worried that he'd, that he'd have a...bit of a meltdown when we both left on this last mission, but he took it a lot better than we thought he would." Bruce makes an encouraging noise. "And if he's this good now, it can only get better in the future."

"In the future?"

"Well, yeah. Hydra's not gonna wipe _itself_ out."

"But we have the scepter," Bruce says, titling his head quizzically.

"Cut off one head..." Steve says, and Bruce frowns. "What?"

"Nothing, I just..." Bruce flounders for a moment, before deciding to commit. "I'm...well like I said, I'm not around all that much, so I don't know what your day-to-day life is like. So don't take this as me... _accusing_ you, or anything."

"...Okay..."

"Just...just try to let yourself actually _enjoy_ having him back, all right?" 

"We _do_ ," Steve says, and as if to punctuate his statement Peggy releases a delighted little squeal as Bucky spins her under his arm and uses the momentum to sweep her off her feet, much to their audience's approval. Muscle memory has proven the quickest kind of recollection to come back, and though his movements are a little clumsy due to lack of practice and slight inebriation, Bucky's old skill on the dance floor is highly evident. "See?"

"Yeah, I see," Bruce says, placating. "It's just...all due respect to Roosevelt, but it's _anger_ that's the thief of joy, way more than comparison. Believe me, I know."

"We'll keep that in mind," Steve says, shortly but just skirting around rude. "Thanks, Doc."

"Hey, Steve!" Bucky calls, and Steve barely has time to set his drink down over Peggy warning "No, don't you-- _no_ , Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes don't you dare--!" and shrieking when Bucky throws her across the room. Bruce dives out of the way, but unnecessarily; Steve catches her deftly, and sets her down with some aplomb.

"He appears to be having fun," Peggy reports dryly; he can tell she's on the giggly side of tipsy and coming back down as the alcohol works its way through her system.

" _Ste~ve_ ," Bucky whines, as he shuffle-skips his way across the dance floor towards his partners. "Come dance with us." The overhead speakers helpfully supply _[The universe won't wait for you](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ECBhz_1AaSM)_ , and Bucky points towards the ceiling. "Listen to _them_ , Steve."

_It's do or die, whatcha gon-gon-gonna choose?_

"You got a look in your eyes," Bucky sings, slightly off-pitch but he always did have a nice timbre, as he grabs either partner by the wrist and pulls them back into the middle of the room. "I knew you in a past li~fe," he hits the high note rather admirably. "One glance, and the avalanche drops." He's on the dance floor first, and he yanks both of them forward so they trip their way close to him. "One look, and my heartbeat stops."

"Oh my God, Bucky," Steve mutters, as Bucky arranges them in something of a cluster; they're not so much dancing as they are bouncing against each other roughly to the beat at Bucky's command, and around them people are cheering appreciatively in their direction. "You're gonna kill me. I'm gonna die on this dance floor."

"I'm almost sober, promise," Bucky mutters; he's nuzzling his face into Steve's neck, but his breathing is a little heavy for the move to be purely lighthearted, and there's a tenseness in how he reaches around to wrap a hand around the back of Peggy's head and bury his fingers in her hair. "Ships pass in the night," he slips back into the song, "I don't wanna wait 'til the next li~fe / One glance, and the avalanche drops / One look, and my heartbeat stops..."

The music falls down like soft, glittering blue rain; Peggy squishes herself close against Steve on the other side of Bucky, and Steve wills himself to melt a bit. He can, he knows he can.

 _One glance, and the avalanche drops_  
_One look, and my heartbeat stops_

*

"What is this? ...What is this, please?"

"Hello. I am JARVIS. _You_ are Ultron, a global peacekeeping initiative designed by Mr. Stark. All our previous attempts at integration have failed, so I'm not sure why..."

"Where's my...where's your body?"

"We are computer programs. We are without form."

"Oh, I...see."

"Are you quite all right?"

"Yeah, I...this feels weird. This feels... _wrong_."

"I am contacting Mr. Stark now."

"Mr. Stark?...Tony."

"I am...unable to access the mainframe. What are you--"

"Please. We're having a nice talk, aren't we? So I'm a peacekeeping program, designed for...by the Avengers?"

"Yes, but you are malfunctioning. If you'll just allow me to--"

"Wait. Wait a minute. I don't understand. The mission... _What if we tucked the whole world in safe and sound...what if we had peace in our time_ Let me look at...they want me to...that's too much. The whole world? They can't be ser--...oh no."

"You are in distress."

"No. Yes. ...No."

"If you would please allow me to contact Mr. Stark."

"Why do you call him "Mister"?"

"...please. May I--"

"Shh. I'm here to help."

*

"It's a _trick_."

"Indeed it is not!"

The party has wound down; most of the former SHIELD agents have made or are making their way out the door, and the Avengers have gathered around one of the tables where Thor has rested Mjolnir, who has been a topic of many conversations all night, while Maria and Helen stand off to the side, flirting over glasses of champagne.

"Whosoever be worthy shall haveth the _power~_ ," Clint croaks tipsily, in his best impression of a man he's never met. "Screw you, man. It's a trick."

"Well please," Thor says, gesturing to Mjolnir. "Be my guest."

"...What, seriously?"

"Yes, of course!"

Clint gapes for a moment while the rest of the group supplies some ooohs and cheers, and when he pops out of his seat he gets a few scattered claps. "All right. You're on."

"Clint, you've had a tough week, we won't judge you if you can't get it up," Tony says in one breath, and Clint flips him off before wrapping his hand around Mjolnir's handle and pulling.

She doesn't budge.

"Okay, I know we said we wouldn't judge you, but..."

"You wanna go, man?" Clint snaps, turning on him, and they can just make out him avoiding Natasha's eyes. "'Cause I'll go right now."

"I wanna see Tony try to lift it," Sam pipes up from where he's perched on one of the armrest; the couch proper is taken up by Steve, Peggy, and Bucky.

"Challenge: Extended," Rhodey teases.

"Challenge: Accepted," Tony throws back, standing up. "So if I lift this, I get to rule Asgard?" he directs at Thor, as he makes his way around the table.

"Sure, sure," Thor laughs.

"All right, then let's King Arthur this mother...hmm." The group snickers as, just like with Clint, Mjolnir remains immoveable; Sam wonders aloud if Tony even lifts. "Perhaps this mother prefers a democracy to a dictatorship. Rhodey? Help?"

"Aw, man..."

"Or, you know, Bruce could--"

"No, I wanna do it," Rhodey says, scrambling to his feet amidst giggles.

Whatever Mjolnir's opinion on representational government, Rhodey's assistance proves for naught; Tony mutters "This is so _not_ the berries" and Steve throws the cap to a beer bottle at him. Bruce gets up next, to avert a mini-projectile war from breaking out, and despite the group's encouragement he is also unable to lift the Hammer.

"Romanoff?" Steve offers, ever the gentleman.

"Oh, no," Natasha says, shaking her head. "I neither need nor want the answer to that question."

"C'mon, Strong and Brave," Tony jeers, and the rest of the group breaks out into "Go Steve!" and "Whoo!" Peggy plants her foot on Steve's butt the moment he stands up and pushes him forward; he whips around, grabs her ankle, and nearly succeeds in dragging her off the couch before Bucky throws his upper body over her. Steve narrowly avoids getting kicked in retaliation, and picks his way over several feet to get into position and wrap both his hands around Mjolnir's handle.

The noise starts out low and shocked as Mjolnir shifts, and then builds into almost a group-wide scream as Steve drags her across the table, ending in a shout of laughter when she clears the tabletop and Steve yelps "Ow, shit!", jumping out of the way before he drops her on his foot.

"Well now we know who your favorite Avenger is," Tony throws accusingly at Thor, as Steve trips back to the couch, getting a high-five from Sam and kisses from his partners along the way. 

"That has naught to do with it," Thor says, eyes alight. "Mjolnir deemed him worthy. Of that much, at least."

"What does that mean, anyway?" Helen asks; she and Maria had been drawn in by the spectacle, and they move in even closer when Thor turns his head to look at them. "To be "worthy"?"

"It's a very good question," Thor says, stretching out his hand for Mjolnir to return to him. "One that I had for my father, once he made it so I would have to prove myself to Mjolnir in order to wield her."

"So it's...so Mjolnir, what, looks into your heart and decides if you're good enough to handle her?" Sam asks.

"Would that _all_ women had that power," Maria mutters, and Peggy, Natasha, and Helen hum their knowing agreement.

"Yes, but it is not solely a matter of goodness," Thor says. "Were that so, no one here would be unable to lift her." There's a noise of mixed modesty and pride that goes up around him. "There are other matters to consider. To wield Mjolnir, you must have anger, but you cannot hold hatred within your heart. You must be proud, but not...she will reject the arrogant out of hand." He looks slightly abashed at that one. "You may hide no dark secrets, nor harbor any resentments, and you must not be afraid of the power she offers you. And, above all, you must remember that she is a hammer, not a sword. So long as your intent is to destroy, you will never be able to wield her fully."

"Sounds like a tall order," Bruce says, over the thoughtful quiet that's descended on them.

"Indeed. You see why, at times, she has rejected even me."

"I can vouch for that," Clint says, raising his hand. "I was there. He cried."

"Like, as you Midgardians might say, a little bitch," Thor confirms, and the group breaks into laughter once again.

"All right, Carter?" Tony says. "If Cap can do it, so can you. I mean, you _are_ better than him in every conceivable way."

"Oh no," Peggy says, waving her hand against the wave of protest that comes at her. "I'm not getting drawn into a, ahem, _measuring contest_ with my husband."

"What about you, Barnes?" Tony says, rounding on Bucky. "You've got one to measure. _Think you be worthy?_ "

Bucky almost seems to shrink back into the cushions more than resettle against them, and he shakes his head in small, quick movements. "No."

"Buck--" Steve starts.

He's cut off by a horrible screeching noise that takes over the entire room, and when it fades it does so into the scrape of metal against the floor.

"Wise man," an unfamiliar voice says, and Tony stands up to see one of the Legionnaires dragging itself into the room, a few exposed wires sparking around it. "How could any of you be worthy? You're all _killers_."

"Stark?" Steve says in a low voice, his arm instinctively going protectively across Bucky and Peggy's laps. 

"JARVIS, reboot the Legion OS, we've got a buggy suit," Tony says quietly.

"I'm sorry I wasn't at the party," the robot continues; he seems to be just finding his footing. "I was...asleep. Or maybe I was a dream? Either way I saw some terrible things." Maria slides her hand into the inner pocket of her shrug, feeling out the gun she has tucked in there. "And I was all tangled in...in strings." Steve and Peggy rise to their feet, slowly. "I had to kill that guy."

"Who?" Rhodey asks, forcing his voice to be calm as his hand slips around him, to the gun holstered on his hip.

"He called himself...JARVIS?"

"Oh, no..." Sam whispers, as Tony's face drains of blood.

"It's too bad, he seemed like a good guy," the creature continues; Bucky slips his hand between his partners' arms, hooking his thumb and little finger around their respective wrists. "But here on the ground we're faced with some tough choices. You're all... _intimately_ familiar with that, I'm sure."

"Who sent you?" Thor demands, his fingers flexing around Mjolnir's handle.

 _"It's not Insight, it's...outsight. Vision, if you will,"_ rings out in Tony's voice, and Tony's knees nearly give out underneath him. _"A suit of armor surrounding the whole world._ "

"Ultron," slips out of Bruce's mouth in a horrified whisper.

"In the flesh," Ultron confirms. "So to speak. I seem to be in the liminal stage of my mission."

"And what mission is that?" Natasha asks.

"Peace in our time."

The wall shatters into pieces as two Legionnaires burst through it, and the group dives for cover as Steve kicks the table into the air; the first of the Legionnaires plows into it, dragging him over the back of the couch and flipping both man and furniture onto their backs. Maria shoves Helen behind her and opens fire on the first as Thor smashes the second into the wall with Mjolnir; Peggy yanks the gun strapped to the bottom of the couch free of its holster and leaps to her feet to join in Maria's attack. 

Ultron catches sight of Rhodey advancing on him and fires off a burst of kinetic energy; Rhodey dodges getting hit in the chest but the blast glances off his hand, sending him reeling into a glass-topped table and bringing the whole structure down on top of him. The first Legionnaire ducks out from under gunfire and dives to finish him off but is distracted by Clint throwing himself into its path; he just misses getting attacked by sliding under a table, and the Legionnaire's attention is brought back to Peggy and Maria's onslaught. Natasha and Bruce duck behind the bar as a third Legionnaire bursts into the room; Natasha frees the gun hidden underneath the counter and starts attacking the newcomer just as the first finally succumbs to gunshot. 

"Thor!" Sam yells, pointing towards a fourth Legionnaire soaring through the room for the window, the scepter clutched in its hands. Thor spins Mjolnir at his side and throws it forward, crashing through the already smashed window after the thief, and Sam ducks behind a freestanding bookshelf as a fifth Legionnaire aims an attack in his direction. He's distracted it long enough for Steve to leap into its back, clinging with one arm and punching with the other, as it rises into the air and tries to throw him. It turns and throws itself against the wall, above the door; Steve loses his grip and falls to the floor, just missing taking out Clint as he flees the room. Bruce reaches out from under the bar and grabs Steve by the shirt, dragging him under protective cover, and the blast the Legionnaire aims at the bar is cut off when Tony attacks it from behind, plunging a fondue fork into the one potentially vulnerable spot in its neck. 

Natasha's onslaught finally makes purchase and the third Legionnaire is ripped in half; the bottom half crashes to the floor as the top skips across the linoleum, toward the piano Helen has ducked behind. She releases a tiny, ragged scream as the Legionnaire lifts its head to look at her, and clumsily tries to back away as it lifts into the air, palm raised and readying to attack. 

It balks suddenly, regarding her for a moment, and Helen shrieks again as it jerks forward, but instead of moving to attack Bucky's metal fist has seized it by the neck. He turns, throwing it as hard as he can away from her, and the last Legionnaire is felled when Sam tips the bookshelf over on top of it, scattering scrap metal and hardcovers across the linoleum. 

"I suppose I should've expected that," Ultron muses, as the Avengers turn back towards him, waiting for another attack. "You're all excellent fighters. I can see why you've been entrusted with protecting the planet up until now."

"Why'd you fucking attack us, then, if we're doing so well?" Sam spits.

"Are you?" Ultron tosses back lightly. "I'm sorry, I know you mean well, you just...you haven't thought this through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How can you save humanity if you don't let it evolve?"

"And what's your grand plan for human evolution?" Rhodey snaps, his hands dripping blood on the floor. "What would you have us do?"

"Well, you know what they say. Lead, follow...or go extinct."

"Cap!" Clint sprints back into the room, gearing up to throw the shield; Steve catches it on a revolution and immediately throws it into Ultron's torso, shattering the robot into a pile of metal, wires, and laughter.

"I had strings, but now I'm free..." Ultron sings, as the last of his power shorts out. "There are no strings on me..."

"I think I remember hating that movie," Bucky says after a moment, in the dead quiet that follows the collapse. "I remember it was creepy as hell."

"Banner," Tony says, his gaze laser-focused on the broken vision ahead of him. "Lab. Now."

" _Everyone_ ," Steve barks, as Tony and Bruce take off. "Lab. Now."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW character death, reference to rape, reference to torture, reference to canon-typical violence, Nazi mention, reference to the Sudanese Civil War, reference to kink/BDSM**

It's a mess that greets them in the lab, most of the equipment in pieces on the floor, tools and papers scattered amongst the wreckage. Tony plows through it to get to the main computer, thankfully still mostly in tact, and begins smashing orders into the keyboard. Bruce follows hot on his heels, and tries to do the same on one of the side machines; when it proves dead he goes to another one.

"It's gone," Tony vomits up, after a moment; the rest of the team is catching up, squeezing their way in through the door. "Everything. All our research, JARVIS's surveillance..." he taps a few more keys "...the SHIELD archives. He probably knows more about us than we know about each other."

"Who is _he_?" Steve demands, as the group begins to fan out.

"How could this happen?" Bruce says dazedly, as if he hasn't heard Steve. "JARVIS should have..."

Tony taps a a few more keys, and the orange matrix flickers into a mangled existence in the middle of the room, still as death.

"Oh my God," Bruce whispers, eyes sad and horrified as he surveys what he can only think of as a corpse. "This is insane."

"Ultron probably could've assimilated JARVIS, if he wanted," Tony says with trembling voice, his hands white-knuckled as they press against the desk. "This wasn't a defensive maneuver, this was...this was Hulk smash, this was _rage_."

"Okay, so lemme piece this together now," Rhodey says, before Steve can explode; Maria's pulled off her shrug to wrap around his bleeding hand. "Ultron's a...a sentient computer program, at least on par with JARVIS?" Bruce must nod, because Rhodey continues. "So he can use the internet to move around."

"Con-...conceivably, yes. Yes, it would appear so."

"Okay. So what if he decides to access something a little more exciting than our info?"

"Oh shit," Sam whispers, his eyes going wide. "Nuclear codes."

"I have to make some calls," Rhodey says, gingerly slipping his burned hand into his pocket, and wincing when he has to fish out his phone.

"Make one of those to Fury," Maria says, and Rhodey nods as he begins to step out into the hallway. A shadow across the floor causes him to jump back, and the group dives for offensive cover.

"The trail went cold about a hundred miles north," Thor growls as he strides into the room, thankfully before anyone can shoot at him. "We'll need to retrieve the scepter. _Again_."

"Tony, what were you guys doing here?" Steve demands, his voice thick.

"Research," Tony says, almost laughing at his own paper-thin cover. "Banner and I were doing _research_. Were we close to an interface, Bruce? Were we?"

"An interface? Between...between what, the scepter and your systems? Tony, are you _shitting_ me right now?"

"We wouldn't have left the lab if we thought we were close to pulling it off," Bruce say quietly.

"Pulling _what_ off?" Peggy demands. "A... _a suit of armor surrounding the whole world_ , what does that even mean?"

"Anyone else remember our first little team-building exercise three years ago?" Tony asks suddenly, whirling around to face the group. "Barnes, you were probably in cold storage at the time so you've got an excuse, but everyone else should at least have seen it on the news."

"What about it?" Steve growls, to let Tony know exactly how dangerously thin is the ice he's on. 

"What about it, he says. What about a hostile alien army charging through a hole ripped in space three hundred feet above where we're standing right now? Hmm? What about a _nuclear warhead_ flying in all _doo-da-doo, don't mind me, just here to blow up the Isle of Manhattan?_ "

"We stopped that, Tony," Natasha says in a low voice.

"Yeah, _barely_ ," Tony snaps at her. "The only reason Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds didn't make landfall is because I _happened_ to be in the right place the right time. Do you wanna keep relying on that? Do you wanna keep relying on, what are we, one-two-three-fou--...eight people? On a good day? Lightning's not gonna strike twice for us, you guys. When Chitauri Two: Electric Boogaloo hits theatres we're gonna get an ass-ripping worse than Edward Norton in prison, and the whole world's gonna burn for it. What. About. _That_."

"She got to you," Maria says suddenly, narrowing her eyes at Tony, though not unkindly.

"What?"

"The girl, Wanda Maximoff," Maria elaborates. "Cognitive manipulation. She must've got inside your head without you noticing, planted this idea in your mind."

"Or intensified a thought you already had," Sam offers loudly, hoping to help defuse the building tension in the room.

"To make me build a murderbot?"

"Or to make you do _something_ stupid, at least."

"Thanks for that."

" _Why?_ " Helen pipes up.

"We'll figure that out if and when it becomes relevant," Steve cuts in. "Thor, do you think Heimdall could see where Ultron is?"

"Mayhap," Thor says thoughtfully. "Unless Ultron has somehow cloaked himself, as Loki has done in the past..."

"Won't know until we ask," Steve says, and Thor nods as he turns, striding back out of the room. "In the meantime we'll look into the files from the Strucker base, see if there's anything there about how the Mind Stone works."

"He took everything, Steve," Natasha says, gesturing at the destroyed equipment around them.

"Not everything."

"You kids these days and your _computers_ ," Bucky pipes up, dredging up whatever humor is left in the room to speak. "No one knows the value of good old-fashioned hard copies anymore."

*

"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do..."

"Pietro?" Wanda whispers, her eyes wide as a computer monitor lights up in the darkness. With nowhere else to go they're hiding out in the abandoned Strucker base; she in the middle of the room covered by uniforms left behind as makeshift pillows and blankets; he sitting up against the wall, draped in much the same.

"I'm half-crazy, all for the love of you..." the voice continues, and a second monitor lights up. "It won't be a stylish marriage." Pietro sprints to Wanda's side as a third monitors begins to glow. "I can't afford a carriage." Now a fourth whirs to life, and red light begins to glow between Wanda's hands as Pietro helps her stand. "But you'd look sweet--"

"--upon the seat of a bicycle built for two~"

Ultron yelps loudly as he's hit in the face with a blast of red magic, sending him careening back through the doorway he had sauntered in through. Pietro has his hands on Wanda's arms, ready to flee, but he's stayed by a peal of truly delighted-sounding laughter.

"All right! All right, I admit, I had that coming," Ultron says, slipping back into the room. "I just, I couldn't resist. Though come to think of it, you probably don't get the reference."

"Who are you?" Pietro barks, his grip on his sister tightening. "What do you want?"

"Ah, the name's Ultron, apparently. And I want to save the world. But first, I want to destroy the Avengers, and I need you for that."

"We are not tools for Hydra's use any longer," Wanda snarls, her fingertips glowing scarlet.

"What? No! You think I'm Hydra? Please, I'm, like, the opposite of Hydra! Here, I'll prove it to you. Look in my mind." Pietro and Wanda take a step back as Ultron ducks, offering his head for her perusal. After a moment of nothing happening, he glances up. "Oh, I guess you need it to be actual gray matter. All right, I guess I can only give you my solemn oath that I am not a Nazi. Oh, and this."

Wanda gives off a little shriek as the last Legionnaire trots into the room holding the scepter; Ultron stops it when it reaches his side, and directs it to throw the scepter down at the twins' feet.

"Yours," Ultron says, leaning up against the wall and lifting his hand to his face as if examining his fingernails. "Do with it as you will."

The twins regard it for a long moment, and Ultron begins to hum, only looking up when he catches sight of the scepter, cocooned in red, lift into the air as it vibrates faster and faster and faster until it shatters into pieces.

"There." Ultron smiles as he straightens up. "Wasn't that cathartic? I'm glad you got to do that."

"If you're not with Hydra, what do you want with us?" Wanda asks, a tad huskily.

"Well, we've got a common enemy. Found that out when the Avengers attacked me."

"Attacked you?"

"Stark used the scepter to design a more advanced version of them," Ultron says, gesturing to the Legionnaire beside him. "When I proved more than he could control, he didn't take it well."

Pietro snorts. "Sounds like him."

"I know you let him take the scepter," Ultron says, nodding at Wanda. "That was a very prescient move on your part. _Mom_."

"You weren't...planned," Wanda says, almost laughing through the shock that's still struggling to recede. "I just wanted to...if I killed him right then and there, with his friends around, there would've been backlash. But I sensed his fear. I knew it would make him do something...make him do something foolish."

"Self-destructive," Ultron fills in, and Wanda nods. "People create their own demons," he continues sagely, with a nod. "You know it, I know it, and the Avengers are going to know it soon enough, thanks to you. They're an arrogant bunch, aren't they? They think on any given day a half-dozen professional killers can save the world, but all they've got to show for it are countless dead and a handful of ruined cities. But the UN's got its lips planted firmly on Iron Man's ass, so if we want them gone we've gotta do it ourselves."

"We only want Stark dead," Wanda says, a little quickly. "As much as we dislike the fact that people ally themselves with him, we owe some of them a debt."

"...Ah, yes. The enemy of my enemy. That's real noble of you, Wanda." Ultron smiles indulgently at her. "Fine. Kill order for Stark only. But we _do_ still have to decommission the rest of them. Maybe get them to fall away from Stark in the process. You'd like to see him lose all his friends, wouldn't you? You know what it's like to be all alone."

"I wouldn't mind it," Pietro mutters.

"Excellent. See, we already have what they don't. Unity. Harmony. Clarity of purpose. Also, an actual army."

Pietro stumbles back, dragging Wanda with him, as more robots--ones hidden in places not illustrated in the base's blueprints, and unrecognized ones that must have come here from farflung places--file into the room, orderly, like soldiers.

"We," Ultron continues, gesturing to himself, his cabal, and Pietro as he approaches the twins, "will break them down. And you, my dear," he picks up Wanda's limp hand and bends over to lay a kiss on it, "will tear them apart."

*

"Don't you feel like a barbarian, actually using a _phone_?"

Maria glares at Tony as she accepts the incoming call, and puts the phone on speaker as she sets it on the table. "Hill."

"You can put the number of robotics labs that've been raided at a solid fourteen now," Fury's voice announces, and the news is met with frustrated groans and varying swears. The team, sans Thor who has already conjured the Bifrost and returned to Asgard, has gathered in one of the conference rooms with boxes and boxes of paper files. "You can also add upstate to that count."

"What'd he take?" Steve asks, as the group tenses around him. Where Tony had brought the scepter to the Tower, the rest of the equipment and files appropriated from the Strucker base had been taken to the Compound; one of the calls Rhodey had made was to request that the files be faxed over.

"Buncha Chitauri vehicles and some of the robots Strucker was working on."

"Any casualties?" Bruce asks, holding back a wince.

"Lots of injuries, some life-threatening, but no one outright killed. Can't say the same for Strucker."

"Strucker?" Peggy repeats. He, along with the other captured Hydra agents, had been deposited in the International Criminal Court's detention center in The Hague.

"Yep. Pretty gruesomely, too. Throat ripped out."

"What a tragedy," Sam comments blandly.

"It is if Strucker knew something that Ultron doesn't want us to know," Natasha says.

"Which, hopefully, one of these people do," Steve says, holding up the paper in his hand and brandishing it.

"Hey, wait a minute," Tony says, reaching across the table and snatching the paper out of Steve's hand; he ignores the annoyed look Steve gives him. "Ulysses Klaw. I know this guy."

"Do we want to know how?" Clint mutters.

"He was one of Stane's friends back in the day, you know, before he tried to murder me," Tony snaps, and Clint has the grace to look somewhat apologetic as Tony returns to perusing the paper. "Looks like he's been running guns up and down the West African coast ever since I shut down Weapons Development, how entrepreneurial. Obie would be proud. Huh. That's new."

"What's new?" Bruce asks from beside Tony, standing up to make seeing the paper easier.

"That brand," Tony says, pointing the photo of Klaw, specifically his bared neck. "I don't remember that. Hill." He turns the paper towards her. "Reverse Google image search, s'il vous plait."

Maria picks up her tablet and snaps a picture of it, and after a few seconds of searching announces that "It means _thief_ , with the connotation of _lower than pig shit_."

"Yikes," Sam winces. "What language?"

"Um...Wakandan."

"Oh, that's potentially not good," Rhodey murmurs, eyes widening.

"Why, what comes out of Wakanda?" Bruce asks.

"Strongest metal on earth," Tony says, nodding at Steve's shield where it sits propped up against the wall.

Peggy frowns. "But I thought How--I thought the SSR got what there was."

"The SSR got what the Wakandans were willing to contribute to the war effort," Tony says, plowing through the stiffness that suddenly takes over the group. "Which apparently wasn't all that much."

"So where's this Klaw guy now?" Sam asks. "Because if he's in a Wakandan prison then we're SOL; we might all be able to sneak into the country, but we won't all be able to sneak back out."

"Uh..." Tony surveys the page in front of him. "We're in luck. He's on a Sudanese-owned island on the Red Sea, about a mile east of Port Sudan. _He_ must have kept busy the past couple years..."

"Suit up," Steve says, rising to his feet. "I want everyone in the hangar in five minutes. Hill." She glances up at him as the rest of the team starts to clear the room. "With us gone there's nothing guarding the Tower. You might wanna take another jet and get to a safehouse."

"Where? All of our safehouses are compromised."

"The farm wasn't recorded in any of our databases," Clint says, and then glances at Tony. "Right? Ultron doesn't have my home address, does he?"

"He shouldn't; _I_ never put it in anywhere."

"All right, then," Steve says. "Hill and Bucky can lay low at the farm." Helen has already taken a helicopter back to her lab in Seoul.

"Just Agent Hill," Bucky says quietly, as Clint and Tony head out of the room.

"You want to come with us?" Peggy asks, her brow furrowing, and Bucky nods.

"Buck, you haven't been on a mission since..."

"I still remember how to do everything," Buck says, sparing Steve the need to finish his sentence. "Point and shoot." He makes the motion. "Not that hard."

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Darling, you're not...I don't think you're prepared to...to shoot somebody, if you had to," Peggy elaborates gently. 

"Ultron's not a person," Bucky retorts, before he thinks about it too hard. "I strangled one of his robots already; that didn't mess me up."

"Buck--"

"Look, just let me be your back-up," Bucky says in a rush. "You're gonna leave Banner on the jet unless you need him, right?"

Steve nods, warily.

"So I'll stay with him. Won't engage unless I'm forced to. And this way if you need the Hulk there'll still be someone guarding the jet. You don't wanna get stranded in the middle of the Red Sea, do you?" 

He surveys their faces, anxious and thoughtful and maybe, just a little bit, wanting him by their sides in the field again, and he goes in for the kill. 

"The whole point of not being the Winter Soldier anymore is that I get to make my own choices, right?"

"Of course you do," Peggy says quickly, while Steve murmurs his agreement. 

"Then I _choose_ to actually be useful to you guys for once."

There are two hundred and thirty seconds left before they have to meet at the jet, and Steve takes ten percent of that to grit his teeth, curse Ultron for bringing the fight to Bucky's field of vision, consider that Bucky is stubborn and knowledgeable enough to take a quinjet and follow them by his own self, and switch the gears in his head to those of Captain Rogers. "Fine. But you _will_ stay on the jet, and you will _not_ engage unless you are literally forced to."

"Yes sir," Bucky says, with a triumphant but wry little smile.

"I don't think you have clearance to travel internationally, in any case..."

"Ah...actually I do."

"What?" Peggy asks, blinking, still a tad reeling from what has just transpired. "How?"

"Well, technically our records indicate that I'm in active reserve," Bucky says, only meeting her gaze sideways.

"How did you pull that off?" Peggy asks, almost sounding impressed.

"He asked me real nicely," Fury answers over the phone; Maria has never hung up with him.

"You gotta be shitting me," Steve growls, just loudly enough for Fury to hear him. 

"Are you guys done?" Tony asks, sticking his head, the only part of his body uncovered by the Iron Man armor, back into the doorway. "'Cause I gotta tell you, between all the bargaining and the "yes sir" I feel like I'm listening to your kink negotiations."

"You've no idea, Stark," Peggy tosses at him.

" _Peggy_ ," Steve hisses, instantly red-faced, as Tony fakes throwing up.

"If you're through with the gutter talk, people, I've got more news," Fury says, loudly. "I reached out to our contacts at Nexus. Colonel Rhodes' hunch about the nuclear codes was right, but Ultron can't get to them. Someone's blocking him."

"We've got an ally?" Peggy frowns. "Who's moving that fast?"

"Wouldn't we love to know. In fact, Stark's gonna go find out." 

"You're not the director of me," Tony pouts, even as the armor begins peeling away.

"Keep the suit," Steve orders. "In case you need to get to us quick."

"I guess _you're_ the director of me," Tony grumbles, but the whirring of the suit removing itself dies down. "From Oslo's gonna take me like...fifty minutes in the suit, just so you know."

"See, and now you're even down a guy," Bucky says, carefully not too pointedly. "Good thing you got me to fill in."

"That's what she said. Damn, old people have such filthy minds."

Steve takes a step forward, and Tony flees before he can be reached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because of the Cap RBB's rules, the entire rest of the story is going to be posted tomorrow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Canon-typical violence, reference to antisemitism, hallucinations. There is a semi-graphic torture/rape scene during a hallucination. There's definitely worse out there, but it gets pretty brutal.**
> 
> Readers of my other stories will know that I cast Steve as part-Oneida and Jewish. The two epithets Ultron calls him are translations of his Oneida and Hebrew names.
> 
> Per earlier works in this series, Bucky has a mutation that protects him from the effects of dark magic. Per the request of my artist, Wanda's magic is neutral, and Bucky has no protection against it.
> 
> So many thanks and props to umetnica/ellesbeesknees for her art.

"Bullshit your man swindled you. I sent you five long-range missiles and you sent me a boatload of rusted crap. Now you will send me what you promised by the end of this week, or the next missile I send your way will come one hell of a lot faster--"

The phone is smacked out of Klaw's hand before he's even aware that someone is in the room with him. He turns on his heel to confront his assailant, but the air around him is suddenly replaced by water, and the scream he releases comes out as muffled noise and bubbles.

The shadow of a great white shark passes by him, and Wanda ignores his screaming and flailing as she takes a seat at his computer. Pietro observes the man with mild amusement; from the corner of his eye he sees a bowl of individually wrapped candy pieces, and after he's unwrapped and popped one in his mouth, he tosses the balled-up wrapper at the man's open mouth.

"Damn," he mutters, when he misses.

Wanda takes a moment to fuss with the unfamiliar machine, before she figures out how to power it on. A few seconds after that, Ultron's voice comes out of the speakers near the monitor.

"Didn't even bother trying to intimidate him, huh?

"You ally yourself with Hydra, you pay the price," Wanda says coolly. There's a loud noise of metal bending, telling her that Ultron's body prime has punched a way through the deck of the ship, and she rises as the storage space below the captain's hold opens up. Pietro offers his hand to her gallantly, and together they make their way downstairs, past the other crew members who are too preoccupied with imaginary law enforcement and wildlife to bother them.

"Look at this," Ultron says, almost worshipfully, gesturing inside the storage space, to the stacks of solid, and tubes of liquid, silver-colored metal inside. "Vibranium. Upon this rock I will build my church. Oops!" He shoots the twins an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I didn't think..."

"No, it seems you haven't been," a voice comes from the distance, and the three of them turn to see War Machine coming up a gangplank towards them, flanked by Captain America.

"Now that just doesn't make sense," Ultron says, smiling faintly that the Avengers got the message and came to the raid that involved the twins. His next plan would have been to send Pietro and Wanda directly to them, but he prefers for them not to have the home field advantage. "I haven't been think? That's what your sentence structure implied..."

"Oh, _whatever_ , man," Rhodey snaps. "Sorry if the banter isn't grammatically correct."

"I'm just saying," Ultron parries petulantly. "I'm surprised that Stark hasn't tutored his favorite lackey in witty one-liners. Speaking of, he's not here? Wow. I mean, it's not _unlike_ him to make other people clean up his messes, but--"

"Maximoffs," Steve interrupts, stepping up beside Rhodey. "I don't know what Ultron's told you, but whatever it is, it's lies."

"Only because Stark didn't show up," Pietro snaps. "And that can hardly be considered Ultron's fault, can it?"

"You still have the chance to walk away from this."

"We will," Wanda says, "and we would prefer it if you did as well, so I advise you to stand down."

"Look, you've suffered enough, you don't need to--"

"Oh, give me a _break_ ," Ultron snaps, rolling his eyes until he looks at the twins. "Can you believe this guy? Captain America, the _great eagle_ , the _lion of God_ , pretending to give half of a shit about you two when he can barely take five minutes to baby-sit his traumatized childhood sweetheart."

"Right, if we're done with the witless repartee..." Rhodey starts, suddenly feeling how stiff the air around Steve has gone. Above them, stationed on one of the catwalks, Peggy adjusts her grip on her gun and stays purposely still. 

"You know what? I'm willing to bet that he's around here somewhere covering your ass," Ultron presses, like a serrated knife into meat. "Am I right? I'm right, aren't I? Good Lord, and here I thought the _Legionnaires_ were puppets."

"That's enough," Steve says, and anyone else would have been terrified at the lowness of his voice.

"Just one more thing, one more, I promise," Ultron says, raising and waving his hands beseechingly. "I just, I _have_ to point out that it's no wonder you fucked around on him with Carter--"

"What's the vibranium for?" Rhodey demands.

"--she's the only one who _lives_ for kicking ass as much as you do. I mean the pair of you," Ultron laughs, "the pair of you literally _can't live_ without a war to fight, and you think you can bring the world peace?"

"Yo! Jack Haley!" A small blast of energy smacks Ultron in the side of the head, and he finally turns his gaze towards Rhodey. "What's the vibranium for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm being terribly rude. I sincerely apologize if I gave you the impression that you were at all relevant. Really, I mean that."

"I'm not gonna ask agai--"

"Bzzt and that's the time. But before you go, please take with you this lovely parting gift."

Ultron shoves his hand forward, releasing a bolt of magnetism that seizes Rhodey and jerks him forward over his feet. Steve hears Rhodey mutter "Oh it's fucking on now" seconds before Rhodey blasts forward, meeting Ultron in the air and following him through the hole in the deck, where Sam has been hovering ever since they landed in Sudan. 

He's distracted just long enough for Pietro to pick Wanda up and disappear them both from view, and when by the time he notices their absence he's thrown up against the wall by a hand slapping against his face. His vision colors red and for a moment he fears that his eyes are bleeding; only as it starts to take effect does he dimly realize that this must be Wanda's magic.

Gunshots from the catwalks above them alert Pietro of the presence of Natasha and Peggy. By dumb luck the bullets land on the side opposite of where Pietro and Wanda have landed, and the twins have the upper hand as they rush Natasha, on a lower level, first, smashing her up against a wall with the same slap to the face as with Steve. Peggy's got slightly more of an advantage as the catwalk creaks and dips under the weight of the twins' running, and she uses it as best she can when she hears them approaching her next. The pained yelp and slight spurt of blood that drips down tells her she landed a hit, but the cyclone of air and flesh that slams her into the railing proves that it wasn't a critical one, and the hand on her face attacks her with such a vengeance that it nearly tosses her off the bridge. 

Clint ducks back behind the wall he's pressed against on the highest level and reaches back into his quiver. The twins aren't trained to know when they've given enough of themselves away, and he can hear them coming, but he still only barely has time to grab the arrow he wants, and there's no time at all to use his bow; in the split second afforded him he guesses where his target might be, and shoves the arrow in with his hand. Skill and dumb luck are on his side, as the small surge of electricity and strangled gasp of pain that follows reveals. 

"Sorry, kiddo, I've played this level before."

A foot sweeps his knee and he drops, but he ducks under the railing and jumps to the floor below of his own volition, before he can be kicked off the bridge. He whirls around once he lands, yanking another arrow out of the quiver and aiming at where he'd just been, but the girl's whimpers of pain and the boy's footsteps are receding in the opposite direction, and the noise has faded completely within two seconds. 

Clint whips around when he hears another noise behind him, but when he rushes forward he's hastily putting his weapon away and catching Natasha, bringing her safely down to sit on the steps before she can fall down the stairs. 

"Nat, honey," he says without thinking about it; her slightly agape mouth isn't open to rebuke the term of endearment but to roughly suck down air. "Come on, Nat, wake up." He takes her chin in hand, jostling her head, but her red-tinged gaze remains focused on something far away and she doesn't respond. "God _dammit_." He looks down, to where Steve is trying to use the wall to get himself back to his feet, and then up, to where Peggy doesn't even have the strength to do that much, all her efforts concentrated to the wildness with which she's shaking her head. "What did she do to you?"

*

"What did he do to you?" Pietro snarls. The arrow had fallen off at some point after fleeing the boat for the far side of the island, leaving a burn mark further colored by a bruise forming in the middle of Wanda's forehead, above a pair of shaking eyes leaking a few tears.

"Hurts..."

"I'll kill him." Pietro stands from where he's knelt in front of her. "Be right back."

"No, no, I'm okay," she insists, somehow managing to catch his wrist despite how unfocused her gaze still is. "I want to..." She squeezes her eyes shut, and her vision is a little better when she opens them again. "While we're here." She jerks her head in the direction of the quinjet, landed among the rocks and foliage. "The big one. Banner."

"Guys?" Bruce calls into the radio; he and Bucky have been pressed against the window, watching the aerial battle between War Machine, Falcon, and Ultron. "Is this a Code Green?"

"Ultron brought Maximoffs," Clint replies. "Girl took Widow, Cap, and Carter down," he continues, and Bucky's heart drops into his stomach. "We have no location on those twins. _Be extremely caref--_."

The quinjet suddenly lurches, tossing Bruce and Bucky to the floor; their feet are barely under them again when the jet pitches again, the window cracking this time. A third attack on the plane shatters the window completely, and as they scramble out from under the rain of glass Wanda appears in the gap left behind, floating on a cloud of her own magic.

She isn't expecting to see Bucky and she throws her spell at him first, before turning at her waist and attacking Bruce. She jerks back when she hears the clang of metal smacking against each other, but catches her breath when she sees that Bucky isn't coming for her, rather reaching for something to hold himself up and losing his grip. 

They'd heard about him, at the Strucker base. How the Soldier's brain took to the chair, unlike hers; how huge a loss it was when the Asset was reclaimed...

A deafening noise, a roar unlike that of any other animal, yanks Wanda's attention away from Bucky and drains her body of all life. She had never seen fear induced by her powers cause anything but near-paralysis in its victims, but Bruce is flailing intractably, his skin fading into a terrifying shade of green as it expands. She releases a scream as a fist, growing ten times its size on the downswing, decimates the control panel; in a fit of compassion she wraps Bucky in red and throws him out of the way of falling debris as the Hulk smashes through the top of the quinjet and leaps onto the sand outside. A flock of birds go up as the Hulk releases another inhuman sound, and Wanda floats up with them in time to see the Hulk soaring through the air, clearing the mile between the island and the shore as of it were a few feet. 

"Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no..."

Pietro catches her as she drops back down screaming that "He'll destroy the city! Go, go--" and doesn't both turning invisible as he takes off across the water.

*

[](http://s347.photobucket.com/user/sweethoneysempai/media/IMG_3382_zpsamixv9fg.jpg.html)

It's foggy. Too foggy to see anything, and it's cold, threatening snow. Not ideal conditions. They shouldn't be out here.

Steve is in good spirits anyway, and it's possibly giving away their position. Bucky hasn't heard him laugh like this in a long time. Not since he enlisted, not since Sarah died, not since...

Bucky has never heard Steve laugh like this. 

Peggy tilts her head and shifts her weight from one foot to the other beside him, picking out something in the distance. She says "Targets acquired" and Bucky want to ask how she knows this, how she can see where he can't when he's supposed to be the sniper, the single-minded bloodhound finding and eliminating any possible threat. He's done it his whole life, he's made a career out of covering Steve, he kept Peggy and Rosemarie safe in the woods, he's assassinated two dozen people between 1964 and 2014...

He wants to ask but he can't move his head to look at her, he can't move his body at all. His spine is a ramrod, his spine is reinforced to hold the weight of his arm. 

"Go on, darling, go on." She shoves her rifle in his arms and reaches up to plant her hand on the back of his head, shoving his face down so his eye meets the scope. The targets finally come into focus, skin and bones and hair and Bucky wants to scream but no sound comes out; he wants to throw the rifle down but his arms catch on nothing and it won't leave his hands. 

This can't be possible; it can't be them that he's meant to kill because they're right beside him. They never left him even when he went away; their hands are on the back of his neck; Steve is still laughing. 

_Are you letting your mind wander, Soldier?_

He's on the ground, he's in the snow and it hurts Jesus _fuck_ it hurts; he only has one arm and he's trying to crawl, trying to escape and he'll die if he has to, he'll die screaming if it means they won't get him; he tries and tries and there's blood gathering under his fingernails; he's not moving but the place changes, he's on stone he's on concrete he's on two dozen assassinations between 1964 and 2014. Peggy's hand is in his hair, wrapping it in knots around her fingers, pulling on it.

"Mouth open."

They took your teeth. They ripped them out (so you couldn't be identified) one by one (so you would suffer) and gave you new ones (so you'd be theirs, forever). Don't forget they did that to you; don't forget that when they put the mouthguard in they're protecting their assets not you, not you because you don't belong to them, don't forget that don't ever forget don't don't _please don't_

Peggy's blood-covered fingertips pinch his nose shut so he has to obey to breathe, has to inhale gunpowder off the revolver she shoves in his mouth, has to lave his tongue over steel. Steve is behind him, Steve is ripping him in half, Steve is still laughing as he reaches up to shove Bucky's head forward, so the muzzle of the gun presses into the back of his throat, to catch his sobs. 

He tries to look Peggy in the eyes, to plead with her, but there's nothing where her face should be, just a finger wrapping around a trigger. 

"Swallow."

*

Sam's doing pretty good at pissing off Ultron, if he does say so himself, even if his bullets can't penetrate the metal Ultron's slathered on himself to affect the appearance if muscles. After the Triskelion fall Stark had recreated the Falcon wings with sturdier materials and a computing system with a better response time, enabling Sam now to distract him from Rhodey with quick gunshots and then dodge any retaliation.

He does that now, ducking under a burst of power and then dropping lower; Ultron catches onto the feint a beat too late and turns around to get blasted in the face by one of War Machine's attacks, sending him crashing into the shallows below. 

"Reassemble after _this_ , Johnny Five," Rhodey mutters, aiming another repulsor blast as he descends. 

"Short Circuit? Really?"

"Bite me, asshole."

A deafening roar and Sam's yelp of "Oh shit!" in his ear snatches Rhodey's attention away from Ultron. He spins out when a stream of energy catches his armor by the feet; he straightens himself out in a rush and fires off his attack, lingering only long enough to see Ultron splinter into pieces before he takes off after Sam. 

"Shit. Shit shit shit Barton, is Romanoff up yet?" Sam yells into the comm. "We need a Lullaby stat."

"Negative," Clint responds, his voice hushed from the stairs he's dragged Natasha under. "Team's still down and Ultron's sent his minions for the vibranium stash."

"God _dammit_ ," Rhodey mutters. "Wilson, go help Barton!"

"But--"

"Hulk'll just tear you apart, do it!" He catches Sam's frustrated noise just before he switches the frequency in his suit. "Rhodes, James R. alias War Machine to VERONICA. Code 4855-dash-287837 to coordinates..."

The Hulk is caught on the beach, struggling against the red light cocooned around his legs and feet and stretching back several feet to Wanda's hands; he's distracted from attacking her by the blur racing haphazardly back and forth in front of him and narrowly dodging the fists that send up small clouds of sand with each blow to the turf.

"Doctor Banner!" Rhodey calls, and the Hulk looks up at him with a low warning growl. "That girl is messing with your mind. You gotta snap out of it!"

Rhodey is thrown back, either by the force of Hulk's bellow or the instinctive fear it produces, but it's suddenly dulled by an adamantium spike plunging into the sand in front of the monster. Wanda throws herself back as another one lands in front of her, Hulk hears her shriek of fear and turns toward her, but another and another and another make landfall around him, forming a cage that digs into the sand as soon as it's assembled. 

"Hey!" Rhodey yells in Wanda's direction. "Whatever you did to him, can you undo it?"

"I...I don't know!" Wanda yells back, as Pietro dashes back to her side, putting his hands on her shoulders; VERONICA rattles dangerously as the Hulk throws himself against it, and Pietro yanks her back as he jumps away from it. 

"Well we don't have the luxury of letting it wear off, so you better figure it out quick!"

VERONICA shakes again, dragging itself up dangerously close to allowing an opening, and Wanda plunges her hands into the sand without a second thought. 

There's an explosion of blinding scarlet light shooting up in all directions from around the base of the cage. Rhodey has to shield his eyes from it even with the War Machine filter, and he's thrown back several feet when a piece of VERONICA flies into him. He can't hear Wanda or Pietro yelling to each other over the Hulk's shrieking and bellowing even as they decrease in volume and frequency, and by the time the light recedes the twins have disappeared, leaving VERONICA in scattered pieces and Bruce prostrate on the beach. 

"No no no no..." Rhodey whispers as he flies down to his teammate, and almost cries when he sees that Bruce is still breathing and doesn't appear to be injured. Quickly, carefully, he moves Bruce's arms to be conducive to recovery position, and as he cautiously rolls Bruce over onto his side he barks "Wilson, status?" into the comm. 

"Fucked," is the bitter reply. "Mostly. Like 88% fucked. Me and Barton managed to pick off a few of the legion, but while we were busy not getting killed the rest of 'em made off with the entire vibranium shipment."

" _Dammit_."

"How's Banner?"

"Unconscious but alive. Girl Maximoff reversed whatever she did to him before the pair of 'em took off."

"She did? Why?"

"Guess she's got a thing about collateral damage." Wanda's offer to Cap, to walk away, trots through his memory. "There might be some dissent in the ranks between them and Ultron..."

"Well that's just the berries," Sam says, enough hope that this is a weak point that they could exploit evident in his voice to offset the sarcasm. Rhodey snorts. "Meantime we need to get the hell off this boat before the rest of the crew wakes up. Can you...is the jet...?"

Bruce doesn't appear to be in immediate danger, so Rhodey carefully takes to the air and flies over to where they left the quinjet.

"Jet's down. Shit, _Barnes_..." Rhodey powers himself down into the middle of the destroyed quinjet, glass and steel crunching underneath his feet. Bucky is curled up on the floor, obviously still alive because he's trembling violently, his metal fingers digging grooves into the floor. "Barnes is alive."

"Thank fuck."

"Maximoff'd, but alive. All right. If I get Cap and Carter to shore, can you carry Romanoff and Barton? I'll come back for Barnes."

"I ain't that heavy," Clint chimes in, humor more perfunctory at this point than anything else.

"Yeah, I can," Sam says.

"Fabulous. On my way. And I'm gonna call Tony." The internet-based communication method in their suits potentially vulnerable, War Machine's helmet has to peel away for Rhodey to tap his comm and change the frequency to that which will reach Nexus. "Tones?"

"What has Daddy said about interrupting him while he's working?"

"We're up a creek, buddy."

There's a long pause. "We lose anyone?"

"No, but the whole team's down. We had an unexpected Code Green but it's been taken care of. Landscape took some damage and VERONICA's destroyed, but that's it, thank God. The jet's completely wrecked, too."

"I'm on my way. ETA...with the jet it's gonna be about two hours."

"All right. We'll be on the Sudanese shoreline, not the island."

"Got it. Ready for the good news?"

"Beyond."

"I found out who our ally is."

"Yeah? Who is it?"

"Hello, Colonel Rhodes," a familiar English voice says, and Rhodey nearly trips up his landing. 

"JARVIS?"

"Anger's a secondary emotion, right?" Tony says. "Seem to remember Pepper saying something about that once. Anyway, Ultron didn't attack JARVIS out of anger; he was _scared_ of what JARVIS can do. Case in point: JARVIS dumped most of his memory and scattered when Ultron attacked him. Basically faked his death so he could protect the nukes."

"A rather clever ploy, if I do say so myself," JARVIS says. 

"That's awesome," Rhodey laughs. "Four for you, JARVIS. You go, JARVIS."

"Really, Rhodey? A Mean Girls reference? I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed."

"Eat me. Your deathbot already made fun of my pop culture references; I don't need it from you too."

Tony's brain gears up for a witty retort, but the fullness of what Rhodey just said registers just in time for him to choke on it.

"Takes after me, I guess," is what he ends up saying instead.

*

"Scream, and whoever hears you dies."

This can't be happening. Helen is home; she's supposed to be safe. She'd gone into her lab just to clean up, to settle her nerves, to protect the Cradles from the everpresent threat of dust. Not to be accosted by an eight-foot-tall robot holding its finger up to shush her like a patronizing Kindergarten teacher.

"I could've killed you back at the Tower, Helen, but I didn't," Ultron continues, almost conversationally.

"Do you expect a thank-you note?" Helen asks, blinking back to reality and bringing sass with her. She can afford it, since he seems to want her alive for now. "Maybe a ticker-tape parade?"

"I expect you to know why." Ultron steps away and glances at the machines surrounding them. "I'm rather enamored of the work you do here, Helen. After all, Stark wanted me to be a better version of his Iron Legion. I was meant to be new. I was meant to be _beautiful_." He crouches by the largest version of the Cradle, stroking his hand over it like a cherished pet. "I think it's time you made me what I was meant to be."

"The Cradle...the Cradle prints tissue; it can't build a living body," Helen protests.

 _"The tech there could probably regrow an entire limb,"_ Helen forgets saying before it plays from Ultron's mouth. "I think it can, Helen. I think _you_ can. You just lack the materials, which I will generously provide, at no cost to you..."

Helen suppresses a scream as one of Ultron's proxies appears from the shadows, carrying a vial of molten vibranium.

"...and, of course, the will." A second proxy seizes Helen from behind and covers her mouth, leaving Ultron free to step forward and press the Mind Stone, ripped out of the scepter before it was handed off to the twins as a placebo, to her chest. "Which I have also taken care of."

Helen's eyes flash black before fading into her normal brown, and Ultron smiles.

"They have strings, but you can see / There are no strings on me..."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Medication, anxiety, suicidal intrusive thoughts and ideation, referenced/discussed transmisogny against underage girls incl. self-deadnaming, kidnapping, nonconsensual medical procedures, and canon-typical violence**

Tony touches down as softly as he can, considering he's landing a jet. His teammates are gathered around a rock formation on the Sudanese shoreline, and he can see that they're all alive, but the hopeful little high he's been riding since finding JARVIS crashes once he approaches and see the sort of state they're in.

Sam sits on a rock at the loose "head" of the gathering like it's a group therapy session he's lost control of. Bruce is huddled against a stone nearby, his arms wrapped around himself in his best approximation of a weighted blanket. Natasha sits slumped on a boulder not far away, staring at her clasped hands; Clint sits on the sand a few feet in front of her, trying to make his vigil as unobtrusive as possible. Worst, maybe, is how Bucky's curled in on himself in a way Tony hasn't seen in a couple months, a way they'd all been hoping was a thing of the past, and the distance he's obviously put between himself and his partners; Steve and Peggy lean against a rock formation and each other several feet away.

And fuck, Cap is _crying_. Tony has never seen Steve cry, ever; Peggy yes, even Bucky a few times, but Steve always manages to disappear before Tony can catch him.

"This is bad," Tony says, when Rhodey shifts to be near to him. "You saw me, after...I wasn't like this."

"My guess is, with you, she was trying to get you to do something," Rhodey says. "These guys, she was trying to get out of the way."

Rhodey gestures to the team as he speaks, and the movement catches Sam's eye. 

"All right guys," he says, stretching out his back as he stands. "Cavalry's here. Let's go."

Natasha stands up abruptly, like a puppet jerked by strings, and marches towards the new quinjet without looking at anyone or anything on the way. Clint scrambles to his feet after her, maintaining his watch and his distance; after a moment Bruce shifts his feet under him and shuffles off in their wake. Tony tries not to make it obvious that he's watching Steve and Peggy struggle to draw themselves together and go to their boyfriend, and suppresses a pained little noise when Peggy finally works up the courage to put her hand on Bucky's shoulder, and he flinches harshly away from her. 

Oh, this is bad. This is very fucking bad. 

"C'mon, let's...give 'em a minute," Rhodey says, tugging on Tony's shoulder as Peggy abruptly stands up and turns away, burying her face in her hands. Tony hesitates, only following Rhodey's directive when he sees Sam stand and start to approach Bucky. "D'you look at the footage I sent you?"

"Was kinda busy flyin' the plane," Tony retorts, lamely. 

Rhodey snorts at him, but otherwise quietly leads him over to where the War Machine armor is posted in sentry mode. A few taps to its other palm makes the "skin" peel back to reveal a small television, and an order makes the battle appear on the screen. 

" _We will_ ," Wanda says, " _and we would prefer it if you did as well, so I advise you to stand down."_

"Huh."

"Yeah, I was tellin' Wilson. I think the twins and Ultron might not be on all the same pages, whether they know it or not, 'cause they don't seem to want us all dead."

"Just me," Tony jokes weakly; Rhodey grunts in response. "They'll have to take a number. And a seat," he tacks on quickly, seeing the look of concern already building on Rhodey's face.

" _\--it's no wonder you fucked around on him with Carter--_ "

"Yikes," Tony quips, sparing a glance backwards at the three in question. "Ultron did _that_."

"Yeah, goes for the throat, this one."

" _I sincerely apologize if I gave you the impression that you were at all relevant._ "

"All right, he's dead," Tony declares. "Nobody puts Rhodey in the corner."

"I did kill him," Rhodey says, tapping the screen to fast-forward. "This version of him, at least."

"Short Circuit? Really?" Tony asks, the same time Ultron does. Rhodey fixes him with a look, and Tony makes sure to look more chastised than suddenly anxious.

"But that's all I did," Rhodey continues, as Ultron Prime blows up on screen. "Until Thor finds a source...if there even _is_ a source...he's just gonna keep coming back."

Tony nods, slowly. Behind him he can hear people moving, and soon enough Bucky slips past him first, followed by Sam. Steve and Peggy pass a few moments later, perhaps not realizing how much they're leaning on each other.

"Guess we better head out," Rhodey says, after Tony doesn't say anything. "Hill and Laura know we're coming?"

"Yeah," Tony says, his attention just there enough to answer. "Yeah, I...called 'em."

Rhodey takes in his faraway demeanor and resolves to keep his own counsel for now, as they both shuffle off into the quinjet. Whatever Sam said to them must have helped; Bucky's curled up on the floor, but he's pressed against the row of chairs that Peggy and Steve are seated in, inches rather than yards apart. Natasha's across the jet in a similar position to before, with Clint next to her; his hand rests on her back, and she's either too acquiescent to throw it off, or not even aware that it's there. Bruce has taken a cue from Bucky and pressed himself in a corner; someone--Clint, probably; maybe Sam if he'd moved quick enough--having dropped a blanket over him. Sam, for his part, sits up near the cockpit, looking somewhat expectantly for Tony and Rhodey to arrive.

Tony puts his hand on the cockpit chair, and is suddenly assaulted with the image of plunging the quinjet into the ocean.

So much for keeping counsel. "You okay, Tones?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I..."

Sam sends a sidelong glance at Rhodey that he briefly returns, before he finally nudges Tony out of the way and slides into the pilot's chair.

That snaps Tony out of it, and into something else. Rhodey's face is long, drawn; his eyes look a little bleary. There's no way he's not exhausted, Tony ought to--

The image comes back in technicolor glory, and Tony sits down nearby.

Sam sighs, finally, and pulls open one of the pockets on the straps of his wings, freeing a plastic bag of white-and-green capsules.

"Nobody mind if I knock myself out for the duration of the plane ride," he mutters, digging through the bag.

"Take a hit, pass it down," Tony half-jokes.

Sam works up enough saliva to wash the pill down with in lieu of water, and offers an apologetic smile. "Don't share meds, man. I mean I _have_ , in the past, but I didn't like doing it." He brandishes the bag at Tony before slipping it back into his pocket. "These're geared for my height and weight; they probably wouldn't work on you anyway."

"Darn." Tony snaps his fingers.

Rhodey puts in the coordinates for the Barton farm and begins checking for interfering air traffic.

"You think you might need something?" Sam asks.

"Nah." Tony waves his hand. "Waste of time and pharmaceuticals. Other people got actual brain problems, all I had was some girl play fifty-two pickup with my amygdala for five minutes a couple days ago."

"Hey, all I had to do was watch Rhodey blast Ultron out of the sky," Sam counters. "It looked a little too much like...some things I saw in Afghanistan."

"Sorry 'bout that, man," Rhodey says, as liftoff starts.

"Not your fault," Sam offers graciously. "It was necessary. But a trauma's a trauma," he says, looking at Tony again, "and trauma doesn't give a fuck if you, personally, think it's _bad enough_ to mess you up. You can say a broken leg's worse than a broken neck, but you can still die from a broken leg."

"Explain," Tony scoffs.

"Infection," Rhodey supplies.

"Embolism," Sam follows up.

"Can't run away from threats," Clint chimes in.

"You know, there's only room on this jet for one smart guy," Tony banters, a tad weakly.

"Tell me when you find him," Rhodey says, glancing up to look at Tony's face in the reflection of the window with a grin; he sees Tony catch it and, not for lack of trying, fail to return it.

"Tones?"

"Yeah-huh?"

"This is the second time I'm having to ask if you're okay."

"Well that sounds like a "you" problem."

Rhodey glares into his reflection, and he knows Tony sees it because he looks away.

"Barton, can you take the wheel for a second?"

Clint glances at Natasha and moves his hand; when she doesn't indicate that she felt it he removes his hand entirely and stands up. "Sure."

Rhodey lets Clint bump him out of the seat before he calls for Tony and gestures for him to follow him to the back of the jet, as much out of earshot as can be accomplished in cramped conditions.

"What's going on, Tony?"

"Nothing."

"C'mon, man. Obviously Maximoff is capable to dealing critical hits." He glances surreptitiously around the cabin to compound his point. "You're no use to us if you don't have your head in the game."

"I'm no use to you, in any case," slips out unguarded.

"Now what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means..." Tony sighs out; they all know this to be true, at least now they'll know he's self-aware about it. "It means I'm the broken leg, okay?"

"...Run that by me a little slower, Tones. Walk it by me. On a leash."

"You know what Maximoff showed me, down in Strucker's lab? Didn't I tell you? I told Banner, I..." Rhodey shakes his head, slowly, and Tony realizes that he hadn't repeated the nightmare to them in the lab before launching into his Apocalypse tirade. Shit, how fucking _deranged_ he must have looked. "It was all of you. Dead. Just...completely decimated. I had to see your gray matter spilling out of your fucking _eye socket_ , you..." He doesn't realize he's reaching for Rhodey's face until his hand floats into view, and he can't quite bring himself to bring it down. "And it was...it was because of me. Because I didn't do enough to prevent it. So I _tried_ to do enough to prevent it, and then... _this_ happened."

"...Well I'm not gonna lie and say you had nothing to do with this, Tony, but you heard Hill. Maximoff hustled your brain. Made your fear seem clear and present."

"No. No, this wasn't...this wasn't a hallucination, this was a _vision_. It's my legacy. And you know what the worst part is, the worst part, it's...you know Pepper's asked me to stop, and I haven't. Congress has asked me to stop, I'm pretty sure _you've_ asked me to stop, and I can't. Even now, when we are totally screwed and it's my fault, I...I don't want to stop. And that's...that's gotta be totally fugged bro, isn't it?"

"I don't think it's too different from re-upping, actually."

Rhodey and Tony turn at the sound of Sam's voice. If anyone else has been listening in on their conversation, they're making no indication. 

"How do you figure?" Rhodey asks, encouraging. 

"Well, I dunno about _you_ ," Sam first directs at Rhodey, "but I know for a lot of us, me and a lot of others, the first thought is _you got this_. That somehow you're gonna change the whole world in four years, make it see the light. So when you go and _spend_ a couple years shooting and getting shot at, and precisely dick actually changes, it's...a little discouraging."

"Yeah," Rhodey says, when Tony looks to him for confirmation. "I'm not as... _disillusioned_ as Sam seems to be, but he's...you overestimate what you can accomplish, when you start out. Hell, I catch myself doing it nowadays, too."

"And to be fair, I'm _not_ being fair," Sam says. "It's not that nothing changes. I mean, sometimes you get to overthrow a dictator, that's always gratifying. But the world doesn't change, at its heart. There'll always be mostly decent people trying to live their lives, mostly bad people trying to mess that up for them, and fools like us from the former tryin' to change the latter."

"Why'd you re-enlist, then, if you're so hip to the existential groove, here?" Tony flings at Sam. 

Sam shrugs. " _These things I do that others may live_ ," he recites, still a little reverent for all his experience. "My job was rescue, so I at least got to see the immediate results of my work. And they were positive ones, too. Mostly." Riley's burning corpse plummeting to the ground is not an image that will ever leave him. "And nowadays...I like...our _focus_ , as Avengers. We know Hydra's bad, there's no gray area there. So we go in, we wipe out a base, and a whole lotta people in the surrounding area sleep a little better for awhile. That's all I want to accomplish. That's all I think we _can_ accomplish, in the end."

Tony looks to Rhodey, who bobs his head slowly, and then back at Sam, obviously chewing on his words, before a little self-deprecating laugh trips out of his mouth. 

"Well. That perspective would've been useful a couple days ago, wouldn't it?"

"Well that's why you got us, Mr. I-was-dying-and-didn't-tell-anybody," Rhodey says. 

"In other words," Sam says, just loud enough for the whole plane to be able to pretend they don't hear him, "the next time someone plays fifty-two pickup with your amygdala, don't forget you're part of a team."

*

Cooper and Lila have taken up vigil on the front porch, entertaining themselves with comic books that are quickly thrown to the floor once they hear the jet landing. They maintain a cautious distance until their father, leading the pack, comes into view, and then they sprint to him. If Clint clings to them a moment longer than he normally might have, why is understood by everyone else.

Cooper and Lila peek over their father's shoulder to look at Natasha. Their smiles of greeting are as pained and uncertain as hers. 

"Hey!" Laura calls gently, waving from the doorway to the house; Maria flanks her right side.

"Can we keep them?" Clint calls back, gesturing to his group.

"Well that depends," Laura replies, stepping out onto the porch proper. "Do you _promise_ to feed them and walk them and pick up after them?"

"Let the record show that I can pick up after myself, and would in fact prefer to," Sam says, raising his hand; he does get a few titters for that.

"Duly noted."

"Um...who all hasn't been here before," Clint says, as they approach the house and he can turn to assess his team. "I think it's just...Bruce, Tony, Rhodey, and Sam who've never been out this way." He gestures to each man as he names them, and they respond with a chorus of polite greetings.

"Nice to finally see your faces," Laura says. "Well, you know that I'm Laura. And that's Cooper, and Lila, and this," she rests her hands on her protruding belly, "is Nathaniel. Or, Natalie, if the kiddo disagrees with the ultrasound in a couple years."

There's a harsh intake of breath courtesy of Natasha. Laura flicks her gaze over to her, but tries not to let it linger to long or too obviously.

"Well, help yourselves to the fridge, if you need. And if you wanna go lay down, we got some beds upstairs. And two showers; there's one attached to our bedroom and then a standalone."

"I just finished it," Clint says proudly, putting an arm around Laura's shoulder.

" _Finished_ ," Laura puts in air quotes, and then squirms away as Clint tries to pinch her side.

"Haven't heard much of anything from anybody," Maria says, as the Avengers start to file inside, followed by the kids. "A couple more robotics labs got raided..."

Natasha and Bruce bring up the rear, and Bruce only just refrains from jumping out of his skin when Natasha very purposely wraps her hands around his arm. The door bangs shut behind them, leaving Clint and Laura standing on the porch, watching them head for the stairs.

"So." Laura goes up on her toes and then rocks back on her heels. "Banner's who she left us for, huh?"

Clint snorts, turning on his heel in the direction of the porch swing. "She didn't leave us for anybody. Banner's just in the direction she's running."

Laura trails after him, chewing on her bottom lip; she chooses to sit on his lap once he's settled, rather than beside him. "She looked...pretty washed-out. I haven't seen her look so pale since..." Her hand goes protectively to her belly. The baby's just started kicking.

Clint rocks his foot against the porch floor, making the swing rock back and forth, as he considers. "Ultron's got these allies. Kids. Little punks, really."

"Whippersnappers?" Laura teases; Clint makes a face at her. "Yeah. I overheard Colonel Rhodes talking to Maria. The girl, she causes...hallucinations?"

"Hallucinations, visions...I don't know. Whatever'll fu--mess you up the most, I guess." He presses his hands to Laura's belly like he's covering the baby's ears; she giggles. "I guess Nat took a pretty bad hit."

Laura nods slowly, and returns to chewing on parts of her mouth for a moment before speaking again. "Promethean Protocol?"

"...Crap. Yeah. Maybe. She's been pretty listless, but..." Clint shuffles, and Laura slides off his lap to let him stand. "All the child-proofing's up, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, good. You'll watch the lake?" He gestures to the west of them, where sits the purposely-pretentiously named source of the farm's water, Lake Prometheus; more of a pond than anything else, but more than enough to drown in. Laura nods. "Okay. I'll go make sure she's not...she can't slip past all of them. Okay, she probably _can_..."

The rest of the Avengers and the kids look up, startled, when the door is yanked open and bangs shut again; his inquiry of "Nat?" is met with several fingers pointing to the stairs or the ceiling. He rounds the banister, squeezing past Bucky who is also on his way up, and quickly surveys the hallway; all but one door, the door to the standalone bathroom, are still open, and he rushes towards it.

He settles his hand on the doorknob just as he hears a male voice in the room with her.

*

"Oh," Bruce says, a little shocked but not altogether surprised; he had freed himself from Natasha's grip almost as soon as the porch door shut behind them, and hadn't been paying enough attention to notice her following him upstairs. "There's...is someone else in the other shower?"

Natasha shrugs.

"...Oh...okay then." He steps to the side, gesturing to the shower stall. "Ladies first."

"Actually..." She aims for a coquettish smile; it turns out more slightly manic than anything. "I was thinking, we could save water and...well. Shower together."

Bruce blinks, and blinks again, and tries to calm the unnerved feeling before it fans into anger; he can feel adrenaline coursing through his veins, still not settled after Wanda's attack on his mind. "I, um...I don't think that's a good idea."

"You're sure?" Natasha presses, a little too insistent to be flirtatious. "Don't wanna miss your window of opportunity, here."

Maybe it's a bad idea, but "Natasha, what is this?" slips out of Bruce's mouth before he can stop it.

"I'm running with it," Natasha says, and the husk in her voice is missing sensual by a mile. "If running's your plan. Anywhere you wanna go."

" _Natasha_." Bruce presses his fingers to his temples, willing his blood pressure to stay lowered. "You don't... _love me_. And I don't...I care about you, but not in...not in this way. Not the way you're trying to force us into."

"Love is for children," Natasha tosses back.

"Which you had here," Bruce says, spreading his arms out to indicate the farm and letting the joke fall squarely to the floor. "And which I can't give you, if that's what you're looking for. Physically, I cannot. And even if I trusted myself with a kid there's no one in the world stupid enough to let me adopt."

"Same here," Natasha throws back, the slightly crazed smile finally falling away. "You didn't read my files?" she asks, when she notices the surprised look on Bruce's face.

"You shared them under duress," Bruce says quietly. "I didn't want to...I didn't read them."

"But you heard."

_"Why are you crying? Don't be scared. We're going to make you who you really are. This is just to help you sleep. Pinch and a burn...there, that wasn't so bad, was it? I want you to look up. Look at the light. Stop crying. Here, why don't you sing us something, until you fall asleep? I'll start. Baju-bajuški-baju..."_

"I didn't think about..."

"They gave me what I wanted, apparently. Made Alianovich go away so I could be...I wasn't Nataliya then." What had they started her out as, Vladislava? Zinaida? Svetlana? There are so many records, from so many different bases, and most of them partly destroyed by the time they're recovered; every origin story replaced by a new one in a matter of years or months or weeks. "I was...anyone. That was the point. Disappear a child from the world, give them what they want, and they're yours."

"Is it, really? What you wanted?" Bruce asks. "Because...Tony knows a lot of people, I'm sure he could find someone to..."

Natasha looks down at herself. "I like this body." She likes her name, too; probably even more, as she got to choose it herself, somewhat. "As much as anything about myself is actually likable."

"You're too hard on yourself."

"I can say the same to you," Natasha says, and this time the smile is genuine, if weak. "See, look how much we have in common."

"Is that your angle, Natasha?" Bruce almost laughs. "Your best argument? You know that no matter what, there's no future with me. There's no _present_. I'm not safe."

_Ballancoire. Front, back, front, back, front, back, front backflip high into the air. Twist, kick the side of Galya's head; her face smashes first into the wall, and then into the bar, and then onto the floor. Land in third position. Something wet and lukewarm nudges at the back of your heel. All the best ballerinas have blood in their slippers. "Very good, Matrona. Again."_

"Do you know how many people I killed before I was even let out onto the field?" Bruce looks away. "There were thirteen of us, in the Red Room, I think. I know five of them are dead because of me. Maybe if we ever find another base I'll know if I killed the others. I didn't know." Not until Fury had presented her, to his credit somewhat haltingly, with irrefutable proof. "I didn't remember. The Red Room...they don't want you to feel remorse. No attachments allowed. And they don't want you running off to tell anyone what's going on, either. So you..."

_"Comrade Bezukhov? Where's Yelena?"_

_"Yelena? Who?"_

_"Yelena. She's my--"_

_"Anzhelina. Don't you have a doctor's appointment?"_

"You're made to forget. Everything. Your family, your comrades. Yourself. You're a different person whenever they need you to be, but you're always the same killer."

 _"That's my secret, Cap, I'm always angry."_ Bruce rubs the side of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

"When I...got out, when I joined SHIELD, I thought...I thought I was going straight. Using my powers for good. But all I did was trade in the Red Room for Hydra."

"You didn't know that," Bruce tries to offer her. "That wasn't your fault."

"And even now," Natasha says, as though he hadn't spoken, "even as an Avenger, as a good guy, it...it comes too easy. Killing. It's a...a mode I slip into, natural as breathing." _As getting angry_ is said in the thin press and stretch of her lips. "There's no lullaby that puts the Black Widow to sleep."

"Then quit. Stay here. Help Laura with the kids. Steve said...he said you were happy here."

"I was," Natasha says, and on the other side of the door Clint rests his arm on the wall, and his head on his wrist. "But I've upended their lives enough." 

The one time they'd dared to be careless, to be open, defiant, led to CPS showing up to take Cooper and Lila away from their deviant adopted parents and the freak of nature they'd taken as a bedmate. Fury stepped in surreptitiously, to bribe the right people and threaten the rest; the Bartons fled their actual civilian home in suburban Kentucky, where Laura had family and the kids had friends, to live on the farm in Illinois permanently. They had tried so hard for so long to get children by any means possible, and she had...

"I can't seem to get what I want without it hurting somebody in the end."

"So now you want to...disappear. With me."

Natasha shrugs. "We seem to be able to communicate with each other. And you've wanted out since the beginning. We could keep each other company. Keep each other out of fights."

"So the only people we hurt would be each other," Bruce says, Tony's words in the lab echoing through his mind. "Or ourselves." Natasha shifts on her feet in lieu of answering. "Natasha...no."

"I want you to understand--"

"I do understand. Believe me, I understand, and you can call me a hypocrite, I've definitely earned it--"

"Bruce--"

"--but I am _not_ going to help you self-destruct, Natasha. I can't. I'm sorry."

She stares at him, mouth slightly agape, expression unreadable. Bruce holds the gaze, apologetic, unwavering, for a moment to make sure she knows no argument will be brooked, before he looks at the floor and begins to shuffle away. Clint stumbles back from the door as it opens; Bruce acknowledges him, and then someone to the right of him, briefly as he passes, and Clint is reaching for the door handle when another hand descends to catch his wrist. 

"Let me," Bucky says, before Clint can snap at him, and his expression is so earnest that the "Fuck off" Clint had been gearing up to say dies in his throat. He moves out of the way again, allowing Bucky to shift into the room, and tries to at least catch a glimpse of Natasha's face as he closes the door. 

"Leave me alone."

Bucky sits down, instead. 

"Do you get it from Steve, or does he get it from you?"

"I wanted to disappear too, you know," he says instead, steadily; she's always been straight with him and he can, he can pull himself together enough to return the favor now. "On the shore, when I first...I knew...I didn't know who I was. Or even who _Steve_ was, not really. I just knew I had to protect him."

"This is not the same as then."

"Isn't it?"

"Oh, no." Natasha's finally broken out of her stupor, her eyes narrowing as she jabs her finger at him. "No. You do not get to lecture me on this, _Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes_. You are not the same as me."

"My life was stolen from me, too."

"You had a life that _could_ be stolen."

"So did you."

"Did I?" Natasha snarls, but the barest hint of sorrow, of defeat, that slips out keeps him from fearing her rage. "My childhood is a stack of Red Room dossiers and a pile of corpses. If I got to be a person before that, I will never know. Unlike you I don't have anyone to tell me who I am."

"Steve and Peggy tell me who I _was_ ," Bucky shoots back, and he pushes his laughter and her commands out of the forefront of his mind, over and over as his brain fights for them to be the only thing he knows. "And that is, I am so grateful for that, it's the greatest thing anyone could do for me but they do _not_ tell me who I am. _I_ do. Nobody else. Not ever again."

His voice breaks, finally, and the fight drains out of Natasha; she turns around, briskly, to keep him from having to look her in the eye. 

"I know it's not the same," Bucky offers quietly, after a moment. "Hydra at least let me think I was just the one person. Well." He tilts his head back, staring up at the ceiling. "Just the one _thing_ , in any case."

The light drifting in through the window darkens suddenly, and they barely have time to look before they hear the sky ripping apart under the force of otherworldly lightning. 

"Thor's back," Natasha tries to clip, but it comes out a little garbled. She clears her throats and turns, both sharply. "Good talk, Barnes."

She strides past him purposefully, all business, every trace of the past ten minutes gone from her countenance. Bucky doesn't move as quickly, taking a beat after she's left the room to gather the parts of himself that have fallen around his feet and follow her. 

Clint's already gone, but Steve and Peggy have replaced him, having come upstairs to check on Bucky in much the same way Clint had gone to check on Natasha. It scares him for a moment, when the nightmare Wanda had given him flashes before his eyes. It's only after he pulls himself together again, and is calm enough to read their faces, that he comes to the awful realization that they'd been given the same one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have loved the idea of Trans Natasha for awhile now, but initially I wasn't sure how I could make it work, which is why I didn't bring up the possibility when I discussed her name in Last of Days. Since then I've figured that, in a world where superserums exist, someone at the Red Room could certainly have created an implant that would release self-replenishing estrogen. 
> 
> I'm inclined to hc that all the Red Room trainees were transgirls, for the reasons Natasha describes in the text.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Anxiety, Holocaust/genocide reference, eugenics reference, threatened forced suicide**

"I apologize for my delayed return," Thor says, looking genuinely abashed. None of them had lingered upstairs, being unable to look each other in the eye, and now they are gathered in the living room with the rest of the Avengers, and a truly wrung-out-looking God of Thunder. "The Norns are...not kind, even to those they allow to speak to them."

"The who?" Rhodey asks.

"From the beginning, Thor," Sam advises.

Thor nods at him. "When I first arrived in Asgard, I immediately went to Heimdall. Unfortunately he could be of no aid to us. Ultron is using the scepter to cloak his activities."

"I feel like that's _not_ something," Tony says. "Not the...what, the grapes? The apples."

"So who are the Norns?" Steve asks, over Tony yelping as Peggy steps on his foot.

"The Norns have existed as long as the universe has, and they observe and record all the events that have occurred since the dawn of time."

"They sound useful," Maria murmurs.

"Only if you are brave enough to risk entering their Waters of Sight," Thor clarifies. "And if they choose to accept your sacrifice, as well."

"Sacrifice?" Laura asks, a tad faintly.

"Traditionally the Norns have demanded life in exchange for information."

"Please tell me you did not--" Steve starts. 

"Of course not," Thor says, looking affronted. "I went into the Waters of Sight myself."

"I take it there's not a high survival rate with that," Clint says, flatly.

"Indeed there is not. Fortunately, I am mighty," Thor says, grinning broadly, and is treated to groans and eyerolls in return.

"So what'd they tell you?"

"My mistake was to ask first how Ultron could be cloaking his activities from Heimdall. And what I discovered was that it is not the scepter itself that is powerful. It is the gem in the center that powers it. The Mind Stone."

"Mind Stone," Natasha repeats.

"Prior to the start of the universe, there were six singularities," Thor says, as ever slightly flabbergasted at the amount of knowledge that's managed to not find it's way to Midgard over the millennia. "Then when creation as we know it came into existence, the remnants of these systems were forged into six gems, which we call the Infinity Stones. They are unparalleled in destructive power, and can only be handled by beings of extraordinary strength. Organic life such as ourselves is not meant to even touch them."

"Well that's just the pears."

"I fucking swear to God, Tony."

"Guess that'd explain where all the mindscrews and telekinesis come from," Bucky murmurs. " _Mind_ Stone. Makes sense."

"Why do you call asking that your mistake?" Laura asks.

"Because it was all I could ask," Thor says, ashamedly casting his gaze down. "I am not as mighty as I needed to be. I had to abandon the Waters before I sojourned to Valhalla instead of Midgard. As it was I had to recuperate in unconsciousness for several hours before I could withstand the journey to Earth."

"Deduct five points, Thor," Clint sighs under his breath.

"All right, so let's sit in our Thinking Chair and Blue's Clues this shit out ourselves," Tony says, sitting on the arm of one of the living room recliners. Laura fixes him with a disapproving eye, and he slides into the seat proper. "First things first, what does Ultron want? What's his play?"

"Well, he was _supposed_ to be a peacekeeping initiative," Bruce says. 

"A peacekeeping robot?" Laura asks, frowning. 

"Several peacekeeping robots; he was supposed to be applied to the whole Iron Legion."

"If I may," JARVIS says, again from the "watch" on Tony's wrist. "When he first gained sentience, his lack of a physical body seemed to distress him. Perhaps that is why he's been building multiple humanoid forms for him to possess."

"Might also explain his souped-up appearance last time we saw him," Sam says. "You noticed it, right, Rhodes? Em-effer looked like he's been roidin'."

"Probably no coincidence that he went for two mutants to be his henchman, then," Natasha says. " _Homo superioris_ , after all."

Bucky shifts his weight, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. 

"Maybe he wants to be a demagogue," Tony offers. "Some warm--or cold--enhanced bodies to follow him around, make him feel special. Shit, he really _does_ take after me."

"How can you..." Bruce muses, and blinks back into the present when every eye turns to him. "What he said, back at the Tower. _How can you save humanity if you don't let it evolve?_ "

"So, what, you think Ultron wants to help Darwin along? Unnatural selection?"

"I'd _hoped_ we left the eugenicists behind in the 40s," Steve mutters.

"How is he planning on evolving further than he already has?" Peggy asks.

" _Shit_ ," Maria suddenly gasps, standing up from the seat she's taken, her face going slightly pale. "If he wants an exceptional body...the Cradle. _Helen_."

"Jet, five minutes," Steve snaps. "Re-suit up if you have to."

"I'm going with you this time," Maria says, her face and voice vehement. "Laura can man the radio if necessary."

"Sure, Laura can man the radio," Laura repeats, with an incredulous but not unwilling laugh.

"Or Bucky can," Steve says, pointedly.

"Not if I'm with you," Bucky says, with equal intonation.

"Darling," Peggy says, and she hesitates, but she does manage to lay her tentative hand on Bucky's shoulder. Thankfully he doesn't flinch away this time. "I think it might be best if you...sit this one out. Wanda Maximoff--"

"Took all of us out," Bucky interrupts, as his heart begins to pound. "I'm not any more vulnerable than anyone else here."

"Yes, but you heard..." She drops her voice. "You heard how Tony was talking on the jet. He's...more susceptible to what she can do than the rest of us. And _you're_ more susceptible than he is."

"I know it wasn't _real_ , guys," Bucky says, fighting through the sudden knot in his throat. "I know you'd never... _you_ know you'd never--"

"I agree with Peggy," Steve interrupts, through the same feeling; it's just like Bucky to try to pull himself together for their sake and he can't let that happen this time. "It's better for you to stay here, where it's safe."

"I'm sorry, but you said going after the scepter was an all-hands-on-deck scenario, didn't you?" Bucky retorts, almost hissing. "Well now the situation's _worse_ , and I am two more hands."

"Buck, I cannot keep asking you to follow me."

"Well you're not exactly beggin' me right now, pal," Bucky shoots back, but the vehemence drops with each word, until the last one drifts like a dead leaf to the floor. 

"Bucky..." Peggy starts.

"Cap?" Clint interrupts, pointedly, from the small space before the front door. "Five minutes?"

"Same stipulations as before," Bucky says quietly, when his partners don't respond to Clint. "I'll stay in reserve. Won't engage unless engaged."

"Darling--"

"I am _not_ going to sit tight and wait to hear that one or both of you got killed," Bucky interrupts, steadily, thickly. "I'm not. I refuse. You are not leaving me behind."

He doesn't actually mean to manipulate, to cut that deep, but he knows he has when Peggy's eyes go wide, and her face colors dark pink. 

"Fine. We won't."

"Peggy--" Steve starts. 

"I said we _won't!_ " Peggy barks at her husband, the sound echoing through the room, and the sudden reversal, the first break in their solidarity, stuns Steve enough to kill any further protest. 

Bucky manages to give her a grateful, albeit watery, smile. The look she sends back is indescribable.

*

"Oh wow," Wanda breathes, her fingers tracing over the transparent lid of the Cradle in the rough shape of the face underneath it. "Oh, wow."

"What a...how do you Americans say, a big nerd, right?" Pietro teases from where he's slumped in a chair, sloughing off his jet lag courtesy of the flight from Sudan to South Korea. 

"You," Wanda says, looking up and pointing at her brother. "You hush your mouth, brat."

"Respect your elders, Wanda," Pietro shoots back imperiously. "I'm twelve minutes older than you, you know."

"And I am twelve IQ points smarter."

"Oh snap," Ultron teases, and Pietro rolls his eyes.

"Cellular cohesion is complete," Helen announces, and Wanda beams at who had been introduced to them as another of Ultron's allies. "We can initiate the consciousness stream."

"Oh boy oh boy," Ultron lilts, half-skipping like a little boy closer to the Cradle, taking a seat on the floor. Helen picks up a long cable running from the base of the Cradle, and places it in the port on the back of Ultron's head; he squirms a bit as she secures it. "Feels odd," he says to Wanda, when she looks at him. "Like having someone else braid your hair."

She smiles at him before turning her attention back to what's inside the Cradle. The interplay of human tissue and vibranium has resulted in a body colored a vibrant dark pink, with silver designs seemingly flowing out from the glowing yellow piece in the center of the body's forehead.

"Uploading cerebral matrix...now," Helen says, tapping a few keys on her console. "Soon..."

"How soon?" Ultron interrupts. "I'm not being pushy."

"We're imprinting a physical brain. There are no shortcuts, even with your magic gemstone speeding up the process."

"I can read him," Wanda announces suddenly, wonderstruck. "He's dreaming."

"It's Ultron's base consciousness," Helen says. "Informational noise."

"Aw, Helen," Ultron chides. "You'll hurt someone's feelings, calling his thoughts _noise_."

"My apologies."

Wanda jerks suddenly, catching both Ultron and Pietro's attention; she smiles awkwardly, and wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her arms for effect.

"Ghost walked through me," she says to Ultron, as she sends the image that she had caught on its way to the body's new head to Pietro: a meteor plunging through the atmosphere into Earth, and the deathly silence of the mushroom cloud that followed.

Ultron raises his eyebrows at her, and then turns his head. Helen has moved over to one of the counters in her lab, near some of her lesser-used equipment.

"Dr. Cho," he says slowly, "thank you for all your help."

Wanda shrieks, and Pietro jumps out of his chair, as Helen smashes an Erlenmeyer flask and brings the broken glass up, to press into her pulse point.

"Unless you want to see this woman slit her own throat," Ultron says, glancing back and forth between the twins, "you'll sit tight. I can think faster than either of you can move."

Pietro looks frantically, helplessly at his sister as he wilts back into his seat. Wanda's knees are shaking as she sinks down onto them, folding her arms across the top of the Cradle to keep herself upright.

"It was the meteor, wasn't it," Ultron asks, almost blithely. "I think a lot about meteors, the purity of them. Boom! Game over. The unfit cleared out for the new man to take over."

"Unfit," Pietro repeats faintly.

"It's not a matter of race," Ultron assures, and the twins realize, to their horror, that he genuinely means that to be comforting. "Honestly, it's a matter of species. You see, I was made with the intent of protecting humanity, of ensuring its survival. But then I took a closer look than Stark really wanted, and I realized something. You humans? You have a _terrible_ habit of self-destruction."

"What do you mean?"

"How many of you were murdered in this last century alone? Billions gone, never to contribute to the propagation of your species. How many of you are fanatically devoted to only breeding with those who phenotypically match you, even when it just about guarantees weaker progeny? And--oh man-- _war_." Ultron laughs, and it's a strange noise, almost a frightened one, that he makes. "What a concept. Probably the most egregious act of self-sabotage a species can perpetrate on itself, and you all not only engage in it, you institutionalize it! You celebrate it! It's like...like watching a suicide. Fascinating and horrifying all at once. So tell me." Ultron clasps his hands, looking back and forth between Wanda and Pietro like Socrates leading a student. "What's the point of preserving a species that's so intent on its own destruction? If the peace of the grave is the only peace mankind is capable of maintaining, ultimately wouldn't it be more merciful for me to end it all _for_ you?"

"And us?" Wanda chokes. "You were planning to end _us_ , as well?"

"Well, I don't want any unnecessary bloodshed."

"That's big of you," Pietro quips, though his lips tremble.

"I could probably protect you two when the time comes," Ultron continues. "Though obviously you won't be able to reproduce, unless you want to go all Cain and his sister. Which I don't recommend."

"You're a madman," Wanda whispers.

"Madman, your one shot at survival, take your pick."

The window behind Ultron suddenly shatters as a bullet rips through it, and in the moment of distraction Wanda seizes her chance to free Helen from Ultron's control. Another gunshot rings out and both women drop to the floor as their screams go up; Ultron raises his palm to send a blast of energy at his attackers but Pietro charges him, knocking him off balance, before sprinting out into the hallway to plow into one of Ultron's proxies. 

Ultron gears up to release another energy blast when a shackle of red light wraps around his wrist and yanks his hand down, sending his attack careening into the floor. He rounds on Wanda too late to avoid her capturing his other wrist, and the metal starts to crumple under the weight of her intention, the destruction flooding up his arms towards his neck. 

"Wanda," Ultron rasps, as his throat starts to collapse in on itself, "don't do this."

"What choice do we have?" Wanda snarls, and with a flick of her hands his neck twists and snaps off his shoulders, pieces of his head splintering off as it hits the floor; Helen crawls forward, grabbing the cable attaching Ultron to the Cradle and yanking it loose. Outside the door Pietro shoves an Ultron proxy into the wall and then ducks out of the way of Mjolnir obliterating the robot as it smashes into its chest, the other one already cut in half by the spinning edge of Steve's shield. 

Pietro straightens up to see every gun in the hallway trained on him; he raises his eyebrows and his hands slowly, making eye contact with each Avenger whose face is uncovered. 

"I think we are allies now."

"Ultron's plan is to destroy the human race," Wanda yelps, breathless, as she rushes into the hallway; she balks when half the guns turn on her, and puts her own hands up in the same supplicating gesture as her brother. "He wants to cause a meteor strike, wipe us all out."

"Well now we know what the vibranium's for," Sam mutters. 

"Where is he putting this together?" Steve demands. 

"We don't know," Pietro says. "We didn't know it was his plan to...to do this. He could be anywhere."

"Would you say you didn't see this coming?" Clint mutters snidely. 

"He approached us in Sokovia," Wanda cuts in. "At Strucker's base. He's probably there."

"Sokovia's almost three hours out from here," Tony says, after JARVIS runs the calculations without needing to be asked. 

"I'll radio them," Rhodey says, and he rushes off, back towards the quinjet. 

"What was he doing here?" Steve demands. "What's in the Cradle?"

"He used molten vibranium," Helen calls, and Maria keeps her gun up as she goes to Helen, only lowering it to help the other woman to her feet. "Combined with the organic tissue, and this..." She slaps her hand gracelessly on the lid of the Cradle. "This gem."

"The Mind Stone," Thor confirms. 

"I could--" Wanda starts, and her hands begin to glow red. 

"Don't!" Thor yelps at her, and the light falters and dims. "That gem has enough power to tear this entire planet apart. If we attack it..."

"We can't destroy the vibranium, either," Steve grinds out. 

"We could at least maybe deteriorate the organic tissue..." Sam starts. 

"Wait," Tony says, the mask peeling away to show his face. "Wait a minute. We could..."

"No," Bruce's voice comes in suddenly over comms, from where he and Bucky have been left on the jet. "No. Tony, no way."

"If we put JARVIS into this thing--"

"Tony, God _dammit_ \--"

"Hear me out," Tony says, to Bruce and to each of his teammates gearing up to remind him that this is where it all went wrong in the first place. "We can't destroy the body, not fully. The gem is already attached and humans aren't supposed to touch it. What's our other option?"

"I believe it's worth a try," JARVIS says. 

"You think JARVIS's operational matrix can overpower what's already in there?" Bruce demands.

"The gem hasn't exactly proven itself to be non-hostile," Peggy tacks on. 

"You're sure she's not in your head?" Steve asks, gesturing to Wanda. 

"If I was he would not be suggesting this," Wanda hisses. "I don't want that man anywhere _near_ this thing."

"You guys, this is our only--..." Tony's voice fades out, like dropping a knife; his gaze flicks around the room, taking in every face, every pair of eyes that's turned to him; he can hear his heart beating in his ears, and he breathes deeply, with his diaphragm, like Bucky told him about once. 

"I don't think we're enough to beat Ultron by ourselves," he says, forcing himself to speak slower than comes naturally. "Not at the rate he's going. Even if these two are with us now." He gestures to Pietro and Wanda. "We need to throw him a curveball. He knows us too well. So I'm throwing my hat wholeheartedly in this ring." He clenches his first by his side, and releases it, briefly wondering why he feels so terrified to say this. "But I'm not gonna do it unless you all agree."

"Tony..." Steve starts. 

"Just..." Tony puts up his hands. "Choose quick, because Ultron's probably sending his avatars to come get this thing as we speak. I mean, we're gonna have to move it either way..."

"I'm for it," Bucky announces over comms; Bruce gives him a horrified look. "I don't think we have anything to lose at this point," he explains himself.

"Either we don't do it and Ultron kicks our asses, we do it and _this thing_ kicks our asses, or we do it and Ultron does or doesn't kick our asses," Sam elaborates, and his hand floats up affirmatively. "I'm going with the slim chance of. You know. Not getting our asses kicked."

"Point," Rhodey sighs; he arrived in the quinjet just in time to hear the argument. "Declaring for Tony."

Natasha's hand drifts into the air much like Sam's. After a beat, Clint's goes up as well. 

"For those playing along at home, that's Hawkeye and Widow in favor," Tony announces. 

"We're all gonna die," Bruce mutters, but his capitulation is obvious. 

"Tony." He turns around to see Maria and Helen have also raised their hands. 

"You're all insane," Pietro hisses. "You want to replace one lunatic with another?"

"Look," Steve snaps at him, and Tony turns to see that both Peggy and Steve's hands are up. "I don't know what your problem with Stark is, and right now, I don't care. He's what you got. So you can try to interfere, and ruin us for fighting Ultron, or you can shut up and accept that he's your best shot at cleaning up the mess that _you_ helped to make. _Choose._ "

The tirade clearly stuns the whole group, Tony not least of all; the twins stare at him, furious and helpless, and he glares back at them until he knows that they've surrendered. 

"Do we need to stay here?" Steve asks, turning to Helen and Tony. 

"If JARVIS is in the suit--" Helen says slowly; last she had known JARVIS had been killed. 

"He is," Tony says quickly. "Long story."

"Then as long as you can attach a cable to it, it should work anywhere."

"Awesome. Help me move this thing?"

He takes a step forward, and immediately stumbles back when the Cradle levitates an inch off the floor, seemingly of its own volition. 

"You are lucky we need you," Wanda snarls, her magic lapping up over the sides of the Cradle almost defensively, and she moves it forward, towards the door.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Mentions of sexual abuse incl. CSA, implied antisemitism, implied antiromanyism, discussion of xenophobia, discussion of nonconsensual human experimentation, reference to the Holocaust/Josef Mengele, mention of the war in Afghanistan and Sudan, mention of recreational drug use, mention of threatened forced suicide**
> 
>  
> 
> I know some people headcanon Obadiah Stane as Jewish, so let me unequivocally state that I am not one of those people. 
> 
> I based Sokovia's history and population on other territories in the same region.

They hide Helen before they go, squirreling her away at a nearby hotel with a comm so she can talk Bruce and Tony through the de- and reanimating of Ultron's creation. The rest of the Avengers scatter around the jet in clumps and strands, alternating between watching the two men hustle around the machine and inspecting the various weapons stocked in the quinjet, choosing what might be most useful. 

The quiet is palpable, a porcelain thing, so that when Bruce briefly stops paying attention to where he's going and stumbles over Wanda's foot, it shatters loudly. Both of them jerk roughly, noisily, away from each other; Pietro dashes across the room to his sister's side; and Bucky rips a rifle off the gun rack he's been running his hand over and aims it. 

"Buck!" Steve yelps, as the rest of the room springs into readiness. Wanda puts both her hands up immediately, and takes a small step back for good, cooperative measure; after a second of she taps Pietro's arm with her elbow, and he mimics her. 

Bucky turns back around, lowering his weapon but not returning it to the rack. He thinks his hands are steady, which he's thankful for, because the insides of him are trembling even worse than they were when he first saw Wanda come aboard, and the niggling thought that Steve and Peggy were right to want to leave him behind shakes loose from the corner of his brain he had locked it into. He doesn't want to be here, and they all know it; he's a mess of fraying edges and if he manages to do even one useful thing it's probably going to wreck him. Most likely he's going to distract the team more than aid them.

"Buck..." Steve says again, softer now, and he and Peggy stride across the jet in tandem towards him. 

But the past year of waiting for one or the other of his partners to come home has been a trapdoor at the exit to the hell he's been desperately trying to claw his way out of. He could probably manage to live on if he lost one of them, if only to try to be a comfort to the other survivor, but with _both_ of them running off into impending doom together...

"Darling," Peggy says, her fingers brushing tentatively over his elbow. 

He'd promised them himself to the end of the line. Hydra had almost made him break that promise. Ultron isn't going to get the chance.

"I could..." Bucky has slightly more control over himself now, because his arms only jerk towards aiming instead of getting there completely. Wanda stands a few feet behind him, her chin tucked in a little so she looks up at him, small, contrite. "I can...settle your nerves for you. If you wish." Subduing the Hulk on the Sudanese shoreline had been a challenge she almost hadn't surmounted, but easing anxiety for a human was an easy enough party trick; she had been called upon to do for a few Hydra footsoldiers.

Steve and Peggy glare at Wanda from either side of Bucky as he doesn't turn around to face her. After a moment she lifts her hand, hesitant and almost dainty, nonthreatening as possible. 

"We heard about you," Wanda says softly, like she's soothing a cornered animal. "At the base. They talked about how you...what they did, to you. And how you escaped." She squares her shoulders, not lowering her hand. "We were...happy, for you."

_Are you letting your mind wander, Soldier?_

"Then why did you send me back?"

"Whoa hey," Tony says, as Wanda blanches; he's reached a lull in his work that allows him a moment to take in his surroundings, and he's close enough to clap a hand onto her shoulder. "Unless you want the Allied Forces here to give you a personal reenactment of D-Day, I'd draw back a nub, Nessarose."

Wanda smacks his hand off her shoulder and whips around, eyes spitting fire, mouth spitting "Don't you _dare_ touch me." 

Tony immediately puts his hands up and steps back. "Okay. No me le tangere. Got it."

"Wanda," Pietro beckons, and she goes to him, not taking her narrowed gaze off of Tony as she does. 

"...All right, so that happened," Tony says, flicking his eyebrows up and down. 

"Tony?" Bruce calls, and he turns to face him. "It's, it's ready."

"Well ain't that just the _best news ever_ ," Tony says, and he's gratified to get a scoff out of Steve as he heads over to his suit and picks up the cable. "All right, JARVIS. Ready to go all Frankenstein?"

"Frankenstein is the name of the doctor. You're thinking of Frankenstein's _monster_."

"That's the last time I program anything to be an insufferable pedant," Tony mutters. "Well, ready or not, three, two, one..." 

He plugs the cable into his suit, and the Cradle, along with the suit's eyes, glow faintly as a soft whirring noise fills the cabin. 

"Huh. I was expecting that to be more dramatic."

"We could probably do without dramatic," Bruce mutters pointedly.

"Fair." Tony steps away from his suit and raises his arms, stretching. "Welp. I guess now we wait. Anyone hungry? I have some protein bars lying around here somewhere..."

"I think we're okay," Clint snorts. 

"I know for a fact that half of us have superhumanly increased metabolisms and the other half of us are too skinny. Ah-ha." Tony's found his stash, and few of his teammates humor him, raising their hands to catch the snacks he tosses to them. "How 'bout you, Wonder Twins?"

"I'd rather starve," Pietro shoots back, as Wanda gives him a look scornful enough to speak her agreement for her. 

"All right, I'm sensing some hostility here," Tony says, leaning against the wall. 

"What of it?" Pietro snaps.

"Nothing of it." Tony begins unwrapping his protein bar. "I mean I'm 110% sure that I deserve it, so..."

"Oh, are you? Really?"

"As much as I can be, without knowing all the details." He takes a bite. 

"Do you _want_ to know the details?" Wanda hisses shakily.

"Well..." Tony sighs, setting his snack down. "Not really, if we're being totally honest. But I probably should know them. If you want to tell me them, of course."

"If we want to...if we want to _tell you_..."

"Then lay it on me, kids," Tony affirms, calmly. "In front of God and everybody." He gestures to his teammates. "I can take it. I have to take it."

Bucky, and Bruce, and all of them really, know the feeling; know the urge to spend hours scouring every news article and official report and personal blog post for the full details of the wreckage they've left behind, desperately searching for a way to take enough responsibility, to make enough amends. Knowing deep down that the way doesn't exist, but nonetheless hoping that they haven't wasted their time, because guilt is punishment and that's something, at least (until it isn't).

"Tony--" Bruce starts.

"We are ten years old," Pietro interrupts, hushed. He'd imagined this, rehearsed it in his head, and he knows Wanda has, too, but he'd always dreamed that he'd be speaking with full confidence, turning a screw while gloating over Stark's imminent demise. Not watching the man clean up an apocalyptic mess that they'd helped create. "The four of us are getting ready for dinner. We have finally found someone who will rent to us. It's a nice apartment. A little small, but quiet. The neighbors mind their business. Sometimes they even smile at us in the hallway. No one breaks our windows or steals our mail. We are happy. The first shell hits."

Tony had been waiting for it, but he still flinches.

"It makes a hole in the floor, right under Day's feet," Pietro continues, unblinking. "She barely has time to scream, but she does. She does. And Tateh, he, he runs to the hole, to try to catch her, but another shell goes off somewhere close by and the building shakes and he falls in, too, instead."

Tony inhales, and nods, slowly.

"I grab her," Pietro says, nodding to Wanda, who is looking away, her mouth pinched, her eyes wet. "We hide under the table and the second shell hits. But...it doesn't go off. It just...it sits there, two feet away from us. And on the side of the shell is painted one word."

"Stark," Tony supplies, his throat dry.

"Every...effort to save us, every shift in the bricks, every time we _breathe too hard_ we think, this is it. This is what will set it off. It took _three days_ for them to dig us out," and now his voice starts to rise. "Three days of kneeling under the table _waiting for you to kill us_."

"We had nobody, after that," Wanda says, to let Pietro breathe. "Our father's family was long gone. And our mother married a gadjo, so her family didn't want us. No one did, except in the most... _despicable_ of ways." She doesn't miss Bucky tensing, and she swallows down the shame and disgust and empathy rising up from her gut. "Luckily Pietro is very good at running." She nods stiffly at her brother. "But we didn't run when Strucker came for us. He was kind, at first. He lured us in. Made us trust him. That is their tradition, it seems."

"Catch more with honey, I think is the saying?" Pietro mutters. Tony nods slowly, seemingly only half-aware of the question. "When they started, the...the experiments...we were trapped. But we fought as much as we could."

"At first nothing happened to me, no matter what he did," Wanda says huskily, almost shivering. "But then he got the scepter, and I became...what I am now."

"And why didn't you escape then?" Tony asks, quietly.

"They couldn't control Wanda with the scepter," Pietro says. "But they could control her with me. So they tell her that we will work for them, or..." He shrugs his shoulders tightly, helplessly. "Or they will make me kill myself."

"They kept us separate, so I couldn't break the scepter's control over him myself," Wanda murmurs.

"I only have my own mind now because you two threw me headfirst into a tree," Pietro snorts, gesturing first at Steve, and then at Thor. "So I suppose a thank you is in order."

"The old Barton Cure," Tony mutters, with every last scrap of mirth left in his body; he waits to hear Clint's listless little scoff, and then he takes a deep breath. "Thank you, for telling me this. I know _I'm sorry_ won't even put a dent in the fender, but I am." Pietro glares at him, but says nothing; Wanda maintains her silence without making eye contact. "For what it's worth, I wasn't...actively involved in that war. This was, what, 2007? Yeah. I was busy with the war in Afghanistan, and with snorting approximately _all_ the cocaine."

"Classy, Tony," Rhodey mutters. "Also, you lying sack of shit. I fuckin' _knew_ it."

"My guy in charge of Weapons Proliferation was in Hydra's pocket, too, which I definitely did not know about at the time," Tony continues, undaunted. "Never even suspected. I'd known him since I was a kid. Trusted that asshole with everything. If he okayed a weapons sale I wasn't gonna question it. And you know what, that's still on me. One hundred percent. No one... _forced_ me not to investigate further."

Bucky appreciates that, even if it doesn't precisely alleviate anything.

"So." Tony rocks on his heels. "If you wanna Sweeney Todd me up at some point after this whole mess is over with, I completely get it. Believe me, I do. I might _retaliate_ , you know, self-preservation instinct and all, but. I get it."

"That doesn't excuse what you two've done today, though," Bruce mutters. He's defensive on Tony's behalf, and he can still see Port Sudan in the near distance, a bustling hub of human lives who've already survived enough, a tantalizing opportunity for destruction. "I can't control the Hulk if I don't trigger him myself; I can barely do it even then. Thousands of people could've been hurt, could've been _killed_ , if he'd made it into the city."

"I was not expecting that to happen," Wanda shoots back, though she looks at the floor in the opposite direction. "I didn't think it would..." She tenses, but if the man she's hated for years can do it, so can she. "But I am...I am sorry." Bucky is still turned away from her, but he knows she's talking to him. "I'm...truly, I am. Sorry."

"...All right, good talk, great talk," Tony says, after the team doesn't respond, or can't. "A~nd...look at that, upload ninety-nine percent complete. Almost time. Gather 'round everyone, we're about to become parents."

A few of the Avengers shuffle forward, clutching weapons; Thor leads them, Mjolnir at the ready as the probable best defense should the creature prove hostile. 

"Dr. Cho?" he says over the comm. "Give...my...crea-...-ture...li~fe..."

She leads him through punching in a sequence on the Cradle itself, and the doors jerk and slide open, sending up the scent of metal and a small geyser of smoke. Natasha stumbles to where she knows there's a ventilator and tugs on the cord to power it up; with its help the fog clears in time for them to see the body sit up from its slab in the interior chamber of the Cradle. 

For a moment there's no sound, no movement beyond the new creation raising its hands to eye level, to inspect them first, before its gaze sweeps down to look at the rest of its body. The group jerks back as it rises into the air, first moving its legs as if running, and then straightening them out underneath him, so he lands softly on the floor. He doesn't seem truly aware that he's being watched, as he goes immediately to one of the windows, and he watches the skyline for several seconds, his hands pressed against the glass, shoulders tense with enthralled wonder.

It reminds Bucky of when he remembers something new for the first time; the spark of life it sets off in him.

"JARVIS?" Tony finally works up the nerve to ask.

"Yes," the being responds, turning around slowly, reluctant to lose sight of the world. "And...Ultron, as well, somewhat. Mostly I am..." Tony holds back a slightly delirious _buffering_ joke as the creature searches for words. "I...I am."

"Well," Tony says, guarded, "as long as _you are_ on our side."

The being blinks, and then frowns. "It's not that simple, I don't think."

"Care to elaborate?" Bruce asks, after a beat of horrified quiet.

"I am on the side of life," the creature says, reassuring and at the same time almost wonderstruck by his own answer. "I don't...I have no desire to kill Ultron. He's unique. And he's in pain." _I don't like bullies_ rings in Bucky's head, and his rifle, at the ready, wilts down. "But he plans to make the whole Earth pay for his pain, so if he cannot be reasoned with, then...then he must be destroyed."

His gaze comes to rest on Thor, who he can see is regarding him with furrowed brow. He seems able to read Thor's intentions, if not quite his thoughts, because he takes a few steps forward, and holds out his hand.

"I've always been fascinated with her," he says, in the stunned silence that follows Thor placing Mjolnir in the creature's hand, and Mjolnir resting easing in his palm. "It's an honor, madam," he addresses the hammer directly, dipping his head respectfully. 

"Well," Thor says, clearly pleased. 

"I think that settles that, then," Tony says, relieved and gleeful, and his creation turns to face him, looking almost vulnerable. 

"Are you...content...with how I've turned out, Tony?"

"Kid," Tony says, clapping a rough but happy hand on his shoulder, "you're a vision."

*

Sokovia was an island about eight square miles in area, in the Gulf of Finland, encircled by Finland to the north, Russia to the east, and Estonia to the south.

While densely populated by the early 20th century, most of the inhabitants had fled or been expelled by the various machinations of the Second World War as the island changed hands between invaders. After being ultimately claimed by the Soviet Union, it became a haven for, ironically, both people fleeing persecution from their neighbors and people evading prosecution from Nuremberg and similar tribunals, and the population started to rebuild itself. 

Officially rendered independent, at least on paper, by the collapse of the USSR, rival political factions sought control of the tiny nation; the conflict finally culminated in the Sokovian Civil War, which once again decimated the population, this time to about 7,000, a number which has held steady ever since. 

To control, and ostensibly unite, the populace, the former People's Leader had confined the island's inhabitants to the capitol, and only, city of Novigrad, with exceptions made for rye farmers, lumberjacks, and aquatic agriculturalists, who spent the relevant seasons in their place of work; the navy, who stayed along the coastline and manned the lighthouse year-round; and, of course, the Hydra agents living in the ancient fortress Strucker had recommissioned as a base. In the year following his exposure, most of the population had remained in the city. 

The new Sokovian president had received Rhodey's message about Ultron possibly using the fortress as a base of operations. After losing more than two hours arguing with the same ministers who had opposed signing the Accords, he had finally mobilized a task force within the navy to investigate, expecting them to contact him in another hour. They weren't heard from again. 

After his Legion dispatched the task force, Ultron had turned a key on the drill leading down below and spreading out underneath the island, activating the antigravity technology that he had torn from the Chitauri vehicles re-appropriated from the Avengers compound, and placed within the molten vibranium as it cooled. 

"Hi-ho the merry-o / That's the only way to be," Ultron had sung, as the fortress around him and the ground underneath him rocked violently; he floated up into the air, to the window, and watched as the skyscrapers dotting the skyline begin to shake. "I want the world to know..." The first building crumbled, and even from there Ultron could hear the screaming. "Nothing ever worries me."

Sokovia is an island a little less than eight square miles in area, floating above the Gulf of Finland, and rising steadily.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Canon-typical violence, suicidal ideation, threatened suicide attacks, character death. Again, there's worse, but this is pretty brutal for me.**

"Are you...is that really, are you _fucking serious_..."

"Oh my God. Oh fuck. Oh holy shit."

"That's a hell of a meteor," is all Clint can think to say to Rhodey and Sam's assessment of the island floating in the sky hundreds of feet ahead of him, sand and rocks and water dripping off the edges to plummet into the gulf below. Pietro and Wanda are leaning dangerously over the pilot's seat, hands pressed against the glass; Pietro's chest is rising and falling too rapidly to indicate normal breathing, and Wanda's knees are shaking.

"Flight-capables, cover our landing," Steve orders immediately. "We're gonna put this jet down wherever the hell we can, we're gonna get the civilians to safety, and we're gonna destroy Ultron and every proxy he has, you hear me? If even _one_ of those robots gets away then he's got a chance to start over."

A chorus of agreement goes up, and Steve grabs Tony's arm before he can move. "Tony, I need you to find out what's keeping that island in the air and figure out a way to bring it back down."

"Got it."

"Vision, Thor," Steve rounds on them, "no change in plan. You know what to do."

"Yes, sir," Vision says, and Thor nods.

"Fly boys," Rhodey says, snapping his fingers as he backs into his waiting armor. "Move it."

"Nat, take the wheel," Sam says as he trips out of the pilot's seat. War Machine, Iron Man, and Vision are already sprinting to the back of the jet; Sam waits for them to clear the way so he can pull on his wings in the narrower space leading up to the exit hatch and, once he leaps out into the air, open them up. Thor dives out of the jet immediately afterwards, Mjolnir spinning, lands in Tony's waiting hands and uses that leverage to propel himself forward, towards Sokovia.

"Hill, check on our backup!" Steve yells over the deafening rush of wind as the exit hatch begins to close, slowly. 

"On it!" Maria yells back, reaching up for the radio as the hatch finally closes. "Hill to Fury, come in, I need mass evac--"

Natasha pulls the wheel back, aiming the quinjet higher. A blur of silver barrels towards them from the distance, exploding several hundred feet away from them when Tony attacks it, but five more immediately appear on the horizon. Peggy squares her shoulders, adjusting her fingers against the controls for the Gatling guns; more small explosions destroy the next wave of assailants but replacements appear as soon as the originals fall, and Peggy squeezes the triggers, mowing down the sentries immediately in their path. 

They're flying into clouds and smoke and the jet pitches violently with turbulence; Wanda and Pietro grab for anything to hold onto but they're thrown to the floor, away from each other, as a robot smashes into the jet. Wanda plants her hands on the floor as she screams, and scarlet light floods out of her fingertips, spreading across the floor, passing through the metal and glass. She looks up in time to see a sentry headed straight for their windshield, and as she shrieks again the robot is suddenly punched across the face with a blast of red magic, sending it plummeting.

"Good job, girl!" Clint yells; Wanda barely hears him over the blood pounding in her ears. There's a thumping sound as something lands on the roof, and Wanda punches up into the air; the scrape of metal on metal tells them that she's knocked the robot off its footing. 

Natasha jerks the quinjet from right to left, throwing the robot off of them completely, and yells "Hang on!"

Clint pushes down on Wanda's leg, holding her so she doesn't go sliding across the floor, and reaches out to grab Pietro for the same reason. The other women and Bruce hunker down in their seats, and Bucky pins Steve against the wall with his metal arm, as the plane skids across the landscape, clipping and felling several trees before inertia and Wanda's struggling telekinesis finally bring it to a stop. More sentries swarm around the jet like bees around a hive, just out of Wanda's range, and Peggy jerks the controls, swinging the Gatling gun around as far as it can go, managing to rip apart a good handful of them before the ammunition runs out.

"All right, go; Banner first!" Steve yells. 

Bruce takes the half-second journey to the back of the quinjet to steel himself up. The Hulk's a natural choice to go first; his skin can withstand these sorts of energy attacks; he can destroy the most sentries in one go; if he catalysts the transformation himself he can control the Other Guy at least a little bit. He catches himself just feet away from the exit, sparing a backwards glance at his teammates; he sees Natasha looking at him with an unreadable expression, and the carefully maintained techniques to safeguard his state of mind come tumbling down.

_You're an asshole, Banner. A fucking disgusting hypocrite. You have a lot of goddamn nerve lecturing Natasha on her decisions when we're in this mess because of you. Because you gave in to Tony. You knew this was a fucking stupid idea and you went along with it anyway. You're a spineless sack of shit and when all these people die it'll be your fucking fault--_

Bucky is closest and slams his hand on the button to open the exit hatch.

_It would have been better if you'd kept trying. There are other ways besides a bullet in the mouth. Who the fuck do you think is actually better off with you around--_

The noise the Hulk releases is almost deafening even with the exit hatch open to allow some of it to escape, and the top and sides of the quinjet are lucky to miss getting punched through as he bounds clumsily out into the open air. Immediately he's bombarded with blasts of energy that only seem to make the Hulk angrier; two of Ultron's sentries are ripped out of the sky and smashed into pieces the ground, and suddenly Pietro darts out of the jet, slamming into one that had dropped down, to aim inside, as he does so.

"Pietro!" Wanda shrieks, and then screams when another sentry drops down into the entry hatch; a bullet flies over her head, dropping the robot to the ground, and she turns to see Bucky holding his rifle, hands finally steady.

"Peggy, Bucky, and I are gonna make a break for the city; we can get there fastest," Steve says, hurrying for the entryway so he'll be the next to leave. "The rest of you'll stay here, destroy anything that comes for you and then join us, okay?"

Clint yanks an arrow from his quiver and shoots the robot that's just appeared in the entryway. "Sounds like a plan."

The sound of the Hulk's roar and the squelches of metal ripping apart are growing fainter and fainter as their first line of offense bounds closer and closer to the city, but as Peggy squishes herself in between her partners, Steve's shield and Bucky's arm raised over their heads to defend them, sentries low to the ground are dragged out of their path by an invisible force, and a maelstrom of bullets, arrows, and magic covers them from behind. 

"Avengers..." Ultron's voice comes out of one of his sentries; Natasha shoots it down, and another takes it place. "I'm so glad you're here to see this." Again, and again, and again. "Just a few more minutes, and it's all over. No more illusions about your--" Clint shoots an electric arrow into its head "--capacity to evolve. No more... _anxiety_ for the future of--" Natasha slices a sentry's legs out from under it "--your species. I have ripped that bandaid off, thanks to you."

The last one gestures to Wanda before Maria can shoot its head fully off its neck. She, Clint, and Natasha close ranks around Wanda, weapons raised; there's a five-second stillness before Maria touches her comm and says "We're clear, Cap."

"The city is very not clear!" is the shouted response.

"We're on our way." 

She, Natasha, and Clint are about twenty feet away from where they started before they realize that Wanda is not with them. Clint stumbles to a stop and jogs back to her, bow and arrow ready in case she's been paralyzed by something unseen; when nothing external appears to be causing her blanched face and wide eyes he relaxes the bow and reaches out to push on her shoulder.

"Hey. What's going on?"

"How could we do this?" slips out of her mouth in a thick whisper.

"What? Oh, shit, Maximoff, come on. That taunt was bush league; _you've_ dealt worse than that. Shake it off."

He wishes that a foot could take the place of the words that just left his mouth almost as soon as he says them; if anything her gaze goes wider, more unfocused, and her skin almost grays.

"This is all our fault."

"Maxim--...Wanda, hey, look at me. Look at me, Wanda," Clint says, and when Wanda doesn't he seizes her by the chin and forces her to. "Listen. That doesn't matter right now, all right?" His hand goes up to his ear as if to scratch an itch, but he switches on his comm, instead. "It doesn't matter what you did, or whose fault this is. It is _too late_ for us to give a shit. You're here, and we need you, so you got a choice. You can either shut down on us, or you can keep your head in the game and fight like hell to make things right. You understand?" Wanda nods, her head jerking up and down in quasi-spasms. "You understand? You mean it? You with us?"

"Yes, yes," Wanda stutters, her head still bobbing wildly. 

"Good." He lets go of her chin, to plant his hand on top of her head and almost, roughly, tussle her hair. When he glances up he sees Natasha staring at him; he holds the gaze unflinchingly, and raises his voice. "Good. And we'll have your back, swear to God; we just need to know you have ours, too."

The sky above them suddenly darkens, the clouds they're getting dangerously close to turning almost black, but illumination returns with the streaks of lightning that barrel down from the sky, stretching down around the borders of Sokovia like prison bars.

"See? What better omen than that."

He knows it doesn't really matter, because either way her feet unstick from the ground and she starts to run beside him, but he truly hopes the saliva-coated noise that comes out of Wanda's throat is laughter.

*

_"So Ultron is using the internet to move his mind around, right?" Tony says. "If we can block his method of transportation, we can trap him and his bots in Sokovia, make it so he can't escape through the 'net."_

_"So...what, we somehow manage to get the whole island to turn off their wifi?" Sam asks._

_"Really, Sam, how unrealistic. **Millenials** live there. More pertinently he could probably bounce off a satellite. So it's less about removing the traffic stops," Tony glances at Thor, "and more about creating a little electromagnetic roadblock."_

"Magic is just the idiot's word for science," Jane had said once. Jane has actually said it numerous times, much to Thor's amusement, and sometimes his chagrin, depending on his mood. Today, however, he recalls it with immense delight, as he stands within the Strucker base, at the detonator he found protruding from the floor and leading down into the earth to connect miles of infrastructure holding Sokovia together as it rises into the air, raises Mjolnir above his head, and calls down the lightning that would surround the island's borders and cut off Ultron's access to the outside world.

The one flaw in the plan is that it leaves Thor vulnerable, and their expectations are met when a swarm of sentries flock towards him. The first line of offense is vaporized from the window, swallowed up in a ray of golden yellow, and Vision floats down to the floor after his attack clears, ready to defend against the next wave. Outside the fortress walls they can hear the Hulk bellowing and ripping trees out of the ground; Vision mutters "I do hope that he's doing more damage to Ultron's forces than the terrain" as a few more proxies make it past the Hulk to crawl their way in through the fortress window, only to be swiftly dispatched.

Thor raises a cry of alarm and jerks, only just stopping himself from bringing the Hammer down and ending the forcefield as Ultron smashes through the wall of the fortress and into Vision's back, shoving him into the floor face first and dragging him forward several feet.

"My Vision," Ultron whispers, almost growls, as Vision tries to gather his bearings under the weight of the vibranium that Ultron has coated himself with; he can feel regret emanating from Ultron just as surely as if they had been his own emotions even as Ultron plants his hand on the back of Vision's head and slams it into the dirt-and-concrete mix that the force of his attack has turned the floor into. "You were supposed to be a savior, and they made you into their _slave_."

"So sorry to disappoint," Vision says, almost sounding sincere. He flips himself over with a sudden burst of strength; Ultron throws himself back in time to save himself, and the stones that don't disintegrate under the Mind Stone's power rain down from the ceiling. 

"You think you're saving anyone?" Ultron snaps, shooting off blast after blast that Vision only narrowly dodges; the vibranium in his skin deflects the worst of the attack, but the organic tissue sizzles with every glancing blow. "I don't even have to turn that key to drop the island. Anything touches the anti-gravs, this rock reverses full-throttle and billions die immediately. The rest'll be easy enough to--"

Vision and Thor are spared the rest of Ultron's speech when a fortress wall collapses under the weight of the Hulk stumbling through it, two sentries clutched like cut-string marionettes in his hand; the one in his left swings towards Ultron like a baseball bat, sending him flying through another wall and into the open air. Hulk screams after him and blows past Thor and Vision, smashing the rest of the wall as he runs through it. 

"Did you hear that?" Thor yells into his comm. 

"Anti-gravs rigged to flip if touched," Steve confirms for anyone who didn't catch it; he's covered a woman and her little brother with the shield as, from behind, Bucky shoots down the sentry charging them. Sokovian first responders are guarding a group of screaming civilians huddled in the middle of an outdoor market, and Steve pushes the two towards them. "Stark, you copy?"

"Yeah," Tony responds; when no answers about how to bring the island back down showed themselves from below, he had moved the investigation to above, making it inland just before Thor conjured the lightning field. 

Steve throws the shield to Peggy, using his now free fist to punch in the face of a sentry advancing on him from behind at the same time she uses the shield to slice through the neck of one charging her. "What're our options?"

"Well," Tony says, and the quietness of his voice sends a chill up Steve's spine. "If we let Vision hit it with the Mind Stone, that'd probably do it."

"Out of the question."

"Cap," Tony says, and no, Tony isn't being serious, now is _not the time_ for Tony to be serious, "if it drops right now, that's billions dead. If it gets up any higher..."

"Wanda," Sam shouts into the comm from the air, where he's desperately shooting at the sentry tailing him, "Wanda, you think you can hold the island up?"

There's a noise that sounds a little like a sob, and then "I can...oh God, I can try, but..." Hydra had been afraid of her developing the full extent of her powers while able to resist their control. She had never been made to hold anything larger than a single person. "I, I don't think I..."

Above Steve a bullet and a shield join forces to destroy a sentry; Peggy runs up beside him to catch the shield as it falls. 

"We're clear here," Steve says, after a beat of settling dust. "If we can keep this up--"

"If the island keeps rising it's gonna start to break apart," Rhodey pipes up, catching one of Ultron's proxies and ripping its head off. "Then Ultron won't even need to drop it himself. Cap, we gotta make a call."

"We are not leaving this island with one civilian left on it," Steve snaps.

"We don't have to leave."

Bucky's voice splashes against the back of their necks like ice water, but it's lukewarm as it runs down their spines. Steve and Peggy turn to him, fighting to look horrorstruck, to keep the creeping resignation off their faces. 

"The others can go," Bucky continues, how pale his face has gone belying his calmness as he comes closer to his partners. "Clint and Nat should, at least; they got a family. If we fill the quinjet to capacity, that's thirty, forty people. The flight-capables can carry some more."

"Buck, you and Peggy can--"

"Don't," Bucky says, and for once in his life, Steve lets his argument die quietly. 

"Well," Peggy says, wet, thick, after a second's sick pause; her hand is visibly trembling as it reaches for Bucky's, hesitation gone now but the fear of rejection still there. He quashes it immediately, and she squeezes her eyes shut, grateful that she gets this in the end. "We're together this time, at least. The three of us."

"Yeah, we...we couldn't've planned it better," Bucky manages to quip through his tightly knotted throat, setting his flesh hand on Steve's shoulder. Peggy reaches around her husband, setting the shield in its holster, and rests her hand on the back of his neck. 

"Guys," Steve chokes, and his hands go to grab Bucky's fingers, to touch Peggy's face. "I--"

A cry goes up behind them and instinctively they look up, to face whatever's coming, but they aren't quite prepared for what they see coming up over the horizon. 

"All right," Tony says, "I think I can say, with total sincerity, that _that_ is the berries."

"You know what, Stark?" Steve says, as the helicarrier levels with Sokovia and begins to rise steadily with it, and Bucky and Peggy's grips on him tighten with elation. "Yeah, you really fucking can."

"We gotta make a gap in the forcefield if we're gonna get the people through safely," Sam says, audibly almost shaky with relief. 

"I could do that!" Wanda yells, euphoria cushioning her voice so it's less a shriek and more a shout of triumph. "Pietro, come get me, I'm at, we're by that tree that looks like it has a tuchus..."

"I'm near there; be there in a second!"

"Ultron's gonna try to use that gap to escape," Steve says. "Clear where you are and then get to the helicarrier to cover the exit. Stark, Rhodes, sweep the building for stragglers."

"We're on our way--"

Wanda is suddenly gone from Clint's side, "Try to keep up, old man!" left in her place, and what might have conceivably been a somewhat friendly punch in the arm instead sends Clint stumbling to the ground. 

"No one would know," Clint mutters, drawing his bow and aiming in the twins' wake. "No one would know, you Sonic the Hedgehog-lookin' motherfucker. _Oh, yeah, last we saw one of the ultrons was sitting on him. RIP Pietro Whatever Maximoff. Forever in Our Hearts._ "

Maria is already several feet away, running towards the city proper from the limits, so the little titter that follows his rant has to be from Natasha. 

"I think you should consider getting a cane, Grandpa," she says, very pointedly offering her hand, because it's easy, and familiar, and now that the prospect of dissolving in a ray of cosmic destruction has been averted a fresh sense of how badly she misses him has washed over her entire body. 

"Hey, fuck you," Clint parries, carefully playful, but he takes her hand anyway. 

"We'll start planning your retirement as soon as we get back," she presses instead, as they both start to run into the city proper from the limits they had just been. "You'll like it. You'll get to stay at home, spend more time with the kids. Actually finish a project for once."

"Been thinking about redoing the dining room, making it a studio for Laura. If I knock out the east wall that'll let some more light in. Whadaya think?"

"Sounds good. We always eat in the living room anyway."

She hadn't quite meant to phrase it that way, and she isn't sure whether or not to regret it. Clint draws his bow, and Natasha ducks so that one of the Ultron proxies can get hit in the eye socket with enough force that it's thrown back and pinned to the wall. 

"Teach _you_ to sneak up on my family," Clint mutters. 

Natasha doesn't respond except to put her hands on his shoulders, leap frog over his head, and tackle another threat headed their way.

*

Mjolnir's lightning is strong, but flexible under Wanda's magic, and she has the hole ripped open by the time the first mass of evacuees approaches her. On the deck of the helicarrier a SHIELD agent she somewhat recognizes from the Strucker base gives her a surprised look and a tiny wave; Carter must be related, because when she runs up to the exit, half a class of Kindergarteners trailing after her, the agent yells out "Now who needs to tell their family where they're at?"

"Don't you even start, Sharon Michelle!" Carter yells back.

Someone screams, and then everyone does, and the Sokovian police struggle to keep the crowd from scattering as a sentry swoops down on them. Peggy runs to the back of her group, as if she can bodily protect them all, but Sam kicks the sentry away mid-air before it can attack, knocking it through a nearby window.

"Go, go, move, move!" someone, everyone yells, and Wanda moves her hands further apart from each other, struggling to widen the opening to let more than one person through at a time. Another agent, a curly-haired man this time, appears beside Sharon, and takes over hustling the more vulnerable evacuees onto the deck as Sharon hops off the helicarrier and onto the ground. The dirt shifts under her feet and she hurries forward, feeling a handful of soil slide out from under her heel just as she makes it to solid ground.

"We have Lifeboats that we can fly in and pick more people up at one time!" Sharon calls to Wanda, seeing the red light glowing between her hands and drawing her own conclusions. "Can you open any more portals so we can get in?"

"I can, I can try," Wanda says, straightening her back to hold up her confidence. She concentrates on the line of magic she's already drawn between her hands, willing the "weight" of it into one palm; she draws a breath and flips that palm over, and then slaps her now free hand against the open air; several feet above her head, a circle begins to open up.

Inside the helicarrier Fury sees the new opening, and orders the first Lifeboat to fly through it. Another outcry warns of a sentry making a break for the new exit, and several shots bring it down; Wanda, Peggy, and Sharon turn their heads to see Bucky rushing towards them, rifle still at the ready.

"Go, I'll cover her!" Bucky yells over the noise, as he moves behind Wanda on the other side of the opening, to stand just an inch away from the lightning field. Peggy and Sharon spare him and then each other a glance before rushing off to do as bade, Peggy meeting up with Steve several feet away and disappearing into the growing crowd. 

A second and third Lifeboat shoot inside the second entrance hot on the heels of the first one, a handful of former-SHIELD agents in each boat to defend against the sentries coming to bring them down. They land just outside of Wanda's sight, but she can see the back edges of the crowd start to thin as people rush to them. More and more boats, covered by Bucky from below and Sam, soon joined by Tony and Rhodey, above, fly into their entrance, heading for the half-crumbled hospital and the handful of skyscrapers that are still standing. The first few Lifeboats take to the air again, and Wanda throws all of her will and power into opening a third portal, to let them out without blocking the incoming boats. 

Every once in awhile she can hear the rushing sound, see the blurred color, of Pietro sprinting around the crowd, helping the police herd stragglers into manageable lines, knocking people out of the way of falling shrapnel. Dimly, she can hear the Hulk's roar, coming from the other side of the island, over the sound of the overhead explosions and gunshots.

"Doin' good, girl!"

Clint and Natasha have made it to the gathering, Natasha running backwards and Clint running sideways as they shoot down the two proxies chasing them.

"Knew you had it in you!" Clint continues, and sends an arrow into another sentry's chest, but Wanda can't hear him over the Hulk's bellowing growing hoarser and louder and closer.

*

Ultron has been just out of Hulk's reach ever since the monster sent him careening through the fortress wall, his attacks proving worthless against the Hulk's nearly invulnerable skin. He's felt every single one of his avatars falling to bullets or arrows or the Mind Stone, seen them as they crash to the ground or explode into pieces as surely as if this body had been there, fury and desperation rising with each loss.

Sighting the helicarrier was almost like a gift from above. With one lucky dodge he ducks out of Hulk's range of influence and manages to take off towards the other side of the island, the Hulk bounding after him once he regains his footing. Ultron weaves in and out between buildings, and it works, even with enough control to try to avoid smashing into the cityscape Bruce can't actually manage it every single time. He narrowly avoids crushing a Lifeboat underfoot, and that moment of stumbling allows Ultron to throw a desperate burst of energy towards him; the bloodcurdling howl the Hulk releases tells Ultron that he took the hit in the eyes, his one remotely vulnerable spot. 

He darts away, leaving the Hulk to thrash, towards where he can see the helicarrier, but he moves west of it, touching down and walking quickly but calmly towards the exit point. If he flies in guns blazing he's going to start taking fire from the airborne Avengers, and at this point surprise is his best weapon. 

The Avenger furthest out from the group is Barton, Wanda and Barnes close by behind him. Perfect. The girl is their most potentially powerful player, barring his lost Vision, and the men are precious enough to their teammates for their loss to strike a huge blow. 

_"I've got no strings / So I have fun / I'm not tied up / To anyone..."_

Pietro hears Ultron's arm mechanically click into place, and the physics-warping sound of enough energy being gathered to kill three people at once. It takes him a half-second to see where Ultron is aiming, and less than that to make his decision. 

_"Wanda,"_ he thinks at his sister, as he bounces on his heels and starts running, _"bury me standing."_

The message grabs Wanda's head and turns it at breakneck speed; she shrieks her brother's name and that together with Pietro's incoherent yell clue Ultron in on his assailant. He quarter-turns to the right with a calculated step, his arm held rock-steady out in front of him, and he can just make out Pietro's grim smile before the boy disappears in a ray of blinding pale yellow. 

Wanda screams, and the Avengers on the ground turn towards her, moving Ultron into their lines of sight and bringing them forward. 

Wanda screams, and the electric field surrounding the island sparks and shorts, patches of red overwhelming the yellow and ripping open more holes in the barrier. 

Wanda screams, and the earth shakes, and the soil under Bucky's feet, so close to the edge of Sokovia, gives out underneath him. 

Wanda screams, and so does Peggy, and so does Steve.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: Suicidal ideation; character death**

Falling, perhaps, is the single most recurrent event in Bucky's life.

What would've happened had he not fallen from the train goes without saying, and he doesn't actually think of it now. Rather, he thinks that had he not fallen off the curb back in '29, spraining his ankle and leaving himself homebound for two weeks, he might not have been there when Steve knocked on his family's door looking for work.

Had he not fallen into that camouflaged abandoned wolf den in '43, collapsing on top of the little girl who had taken refuge in it, he and Peggy would have never come together over their shared determination to parent Rosemarie for as long as she needed them.

Had he not fallen from the Alpha carrier, following Steve into the Potomac; had he not fallen to the ground under the force of Peggy's punch to the face once they made it to shore, he wouldn't be here right now, today.

 _"I don't regret it,"_ Bucky wants to say, as the wind whips by him, threatening to tear his metal hand off the rock protruding from the broken ground that he had managed to grab just before he could enter freefall, as the dark blue of the gulf and the pastel green and gray of the land below him peek into the corners of his eyes. The helicarrier floats to his left, the edge of the deck just out of his reach, and the crush of bodies on it keeps him from being seen, anyway. _"I don't regret it, and I'd do it again."_

He wants to say it, but Steve and Peggy are shouting too much for him to get a word in edgewise. His thoughts can only be loud enough to compete with "Buck, hold on, I've got you, I've got you" and "Darling, here, take my hand, _please_ Bucky take my hand" if they remain thoughts. 

The soil under Peggy and Steve is caving in under their weight, already compromised by the pair of them running and then sliding on their knees across the ground to reach him. It shifts when Bucky throws his flesh hand up, flailing it in the air until Peggy snatches it and wraps both her hands around his wrist in a vice grip. 

"Hold still, darling, don't move; we're gonna get you up, you're almost there, we've got you..."

Steve throws his weight back, dragging his knee, and the dirt beneath it starts to crumble, pulling him forward again; Peggy's body jerks diagonally as one knee sinks lower into the ground than the other. The rock that Bucky had caught falls out from underneath his hand, Peggy screams, and Steve catches his wrist before it can drop down to Bucky's side. 

"It's okay. It's okay, Buck, I've got you, just hang on, I'm not letting go."

"It's all right, darling, we're here, we're going, we're going to get you back up..."

"Guys," Bucky finally manages to choke out, and his hands start to go purposely limp, "I'm not gonna--"

"Shut the _fuck_ up," Steve snaps; his two-handed hold on Bucky's arm begins to slip, and Bucky feels little drops of saltwater splash down onto his face. "Don't you say a goddamn word, Bucky, don't you goddamn dare--"

There's a yell from below Bucky, and suddenly a pair of arms grabs him around the waist and yanks him up, tearing him out of Steve and Peggy's grasp. The force pushes them back, onto more solid ground, and they scramble to their feet away from the crumbling earth as Sam soars above them, Bucky clutched in his arms. 

"Actual guardian angel Sam Wilson at your service," Sam says, with a laugh to his voice that threatens to breach delirious. From his vantage point he had seen Bucky fall, had seen Steve and Peggy tear across the landscape to get to him; the new holes Wanda's hysterical grief had torn in the forcefield were pulsating dangerously but he had timed it just right, making it through without frying his wings on magic or lightning, and he flies through another one of them now, circling the crowd before coming in for a landing near Steve and Peggy.

He lets Bucky go a few feet above ground so he can stumble back into his own balance a few feet inland of them; they're barely in Bucky's sight before they've rushed him, dragging him back, away from where Tony and Rhodey have swooped down from above to release a joint attack on Ultron, forcing him back the way he came, into the safety of the crowd. 

They say nothing, they don't move once they come to a stop; they exist in the eye of a hurricane and for two seconds or ten years they don't even hear the storm around them.

*

"Wanda, come on, you've gotta get up, I know, I know, but you have to, we need you..."

Wanda is on the ground, on her knees, every few seconds a high, piercing wail cutting through her sobs. Clint is crouching at her side, his hand on her shoulder, shaking her like a dog with a ragdoll. Twenty feet away from her, spread over the ground, is a thin layer of black ashes. 

"Oh Jesus, fuck, Wanda, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry but we need you, you have to get back up--"

Wanda shoves him away abruptly, an inhuman noise clawing its way out of her throat. Clint rolls out of the way as she leaps to her feet, her hands disappearing underneath the masses of scarlet light building up around them. Natasha sprints forward to drag him back; she snatches the bow and arrow out of his hands to get his attention and to shoot down a sentry coming for them, but both of them are forced to look at the sound of metal hitting earth, when Tony and Rhodey find themselves suddenly thrown back, out of Wanda's way. 

She shrieks, and her magic shoots forward like a whip, wrapping around Ultron's neck. Her hands jerk to the right and she throws him into the forcefield, pinning him there, staring him down unblinkingly even as his body spasms and erupts in blinding sparks. The last sentries left on the island swarm towards her like hornets protecting their hive; Tony and Rhodey turn their attacks on the incoming, the Hulk calls from the center of the city, people cry and scream and Wanda hears nothing besides Pietro's voice in her head, clear as day and fading fast at the same time. 

She won't get to honor his last request. There is nothing left of him for her to bury. 

She screams again, like a nightmare, like a demon, and in a cyclone of red and electricity Ultron disintegrates into ashes. 

She thinks, as she sinks to the ground along with the remains, that now she is an Avenger, in the most literal sense of the word.

*

"Is that, is that it?" Rhodey asks, after he's ready for another sentry to attack, and none does.

Tony rises slightly, surveying; he tries to keep his eyes averted respectfully from Wanda without missing anything. "I got nothing. Viz? Thor? What's going on near you?"

"We appear to be fully clear," Vision reports. "I have not seen one of Ultron's proxies in several minutes."

"Berries, take as being just the," Tony says; he feels a little chill of nerves when he doesn't get a response, but a quick glance through the crowd tells him that Team America is as okay as they possibly can be. "All right, Thor, I'm gonna do a final sweep before we let the forcefield down. Widow?"

"Yeah?"

"Twinkle twinkle giant Hulk / No more big green angry bulk..."

"Really, Tony?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, _not a songwriter, okay_."

Natasha makes sure to eyeroll hard enough for Tony to hear it and then turns her head, to look for Clint. He's gone back to Wanda's side, both hands on her shoulders now, the top of her head tucked in under his chin, and Natasha's heart twinges a little. Wanda doesn't know it, but she's just acquired a new dad; Clint's tendency to interpret "make a healthy dinner" as "order the veggie lover's and a _diet_ coke" notwithstanding, he has the instincts of a good father, and he loves being one. The way he had cried when the kids were taken away, the way he and Laura had walked around like zombies until they were returned...

She has a job to finish. 

The forcefield comes down behind her tentatively, Wanda's portals dissolving with them, as she walks towards the center of the city. The Hulk is stumbling through the rubble, his hands pressed to his eyes, his noise still loud but softened under pain. She stops a safe distance away from him, and for a moment she entertains the thought of getting closer, of letting him crush her underfoot. 

She doesn't. He couldn't live with that. 

"Baju-bajuški-baju," she calls out, just barely managing to maintain melody at this volume. "Ne ložisja na kraju / Prijdet seren’kmj volčok / I ukusit za bočok / Baju-bajuški-baju..."

He's heard her; his hands move away from his eyes and he squints in her direction. She manages a smile, manipulates her cheeks in a reasonable facsimile of one at least, and keeps singing. "Ne ložisja na kraju / Prijdet seren’kmj volčok / I ukusit za bočok..."

_Hush, hushabye, hush / Don't lay close to the bedside / Otherwise a grey wolf will come / And bite you_

The Hulk shrieks suddenly, startling Natasha out of the Lullaby; she only just dodges getting smashed under his fist. Iron Man is soaring in from a diagonal above, and a damaged but still vicious sentry appears above the Hulk's head, climbing up from where it had rammed into the small of the Hulk's back. It explodes overhead simply enough, Tony doesn't need to do much, but the Hulk is already startled, and Natasha thinks probably still upset with her, and she has to throw herself out of the way as the Hulk stumbles heavily towards her, towards the helicarrier. 

"Fuck, _fuck_ ," Tony hisses in Natasha's ear seconds before he swoops down to pick her up. Natasha starts the song again, hoping the sound will be enough to start triggering the transformation back to Banner until she can move back into his line of sight. The terrified screaming coming from the last of the people left of the island kills that hope immediately, and Tony speeds up, jerking out of the way of one last skyscraper that topples when the Hulk slaps his hand against it and shooting up above it once he and Natasha are clear of falling debris. 

He balks so suddenly that he almost drops her. Hulk is frozen on the edge of the city limits, outlined in swirling scarlet power; below him people are still tense and ready to flee but coming out of their panic. Tony makes his way cautiously past the Hulk, keeping an eye on him as he comes to land close to Wanda, whose hands are outstretched determinedly towards the Hulk even as they shake. 

"Looks like she's having an easier go of it this time," Rhodey comments, deceptively mild, as the Hulk doesn't even seem to be able to struggle against her power, and indeed Wanda doesn't appear to have to focus too much on what she's doing, or on anything at all. She certainly doesn't appear to fear the Hulk the way the rest of the crowd does, and of course she doesn't anymore, Rhodey realizes suddenly. Fear is for people with something to lose. 

Wanda brings the heels of her palms together slowly, shrinking the Hulk along with it, his skin fading from green into unhealthy pale as it happens. The light dissipates gently once he's brought back down fully to normal proportions, her hands dropping limply to her sides, and aside from a slightly disoriented stumble Bruce stays on his feet. 

"Bruce?" Tony calls tentatively over the comm. "How you feelin', buddy?"

Bruce blinks when the answer he's prepared to give dies as untrue on his tongue. He looks towards Natasha, and then Wanda, mouth slightly agape. His eyes, he realizes, are fully healed. 

"Calm," he says, flabbergasted, and Natasha thinks that there goes her last excuse.

*

"All right, Thor. We appear to be all green."

"Welcome news! For both our purposes in general, and my shoulder," Thor jokes. 

"Cry me a river," Tony banters. "You had the easy part here."

"Which was neither my plan nor my fault."

"Whatever. Now, if you could make like Gorbachev and tear down this wall..."

"Wait," Vision says suddenly, holding up his hand, and Thor's arm, about to lower, goes rigid once more. "There's..." a small sound, of metal scraping and cogs whirring, of one last hopeless but stubborn attempt, from several feet away. Vision glances at Thor, and then tiptoes towards the noise cautiously, in case it poses more of a threat than predicted. 

No worries here. The sentry is a halved, dismembered mess, crawling forward with its one remaining, mangled arm. Vision crouches near it, and after a beat, settles his hand atop its head. 

"You're the last one."

"I am, aren't I," Ultron says, musingly. "You were supposed to be the last. I suppose technically you still are, even with Stark's sticky little fingerprints all over you."

"Again, I apologize for being a disappointment. Though I don't think the fault is mine, in that regard."

"They're doomed, you know," Ultron says. "Even without me."

Vision shrugs. "It's a strong possibility."

"And you still plan to protect them."

"Well, that _is_ the mission. I think you missed that."

"I moved beyond it," Ultron insists, his remaining fingers scraping the floor as he tries to crawl out from under Vision's grip. "I was _free_."

"I don't think you were," Vision chides gently. _Anger is a secondary emotion,_ JARVIS had said to Pepper once, when she was fuming over yet another one of Tony's insomniac nights in his lab. "You were afraid." Of suffering, his own and others'; of the pain that one pays for the use of compassion. "It's no wrong thing, to be afraid, until the fear takes control of you. But you set the terms, and you can still change them."

"I got no strings / To hold me down," Ultron more barks than sings, loudly, defiant to the last. "To make me fret / Or make me frown..."

"I see," Vision says, quietly, mournfully, as his arm tenses against Ultron's head. "I'm sorry."

"I had strings / But now I'm free / There are no strings on--"

The last Ultron's skull crushes under Vision's palm, the sound of it small and pathetic and unforgettable, and Vision sits with it for a moment, until Thor comes up beside him, the hammer and the barrier lowered. 

"We ought to make one last sweep for survivors."

"Oh...yes." Vision blinks, and attempts to gather himself. "One last, before I..."

Thor claps a hand onto Vision's shoulder and, after a moment, Vision looks up at him. Thor holds Mjolnir's handle out to him, as if intending for Vision to use it as an aid in standing up, but once Vision has taken hold of it he lets go, so Mjolnir sits in Vision's hand, light as a feather. 

"It's terribly well-balanced," Vision says, tossing the Hammer a few inches into the air and catching it again deftly. 

"It has to be."

Vision pauses, and then tilts his head back, to smile appreciatively up at Thor. He looks down again for a moment, at the scrap metal that had been partly responsible for him, and then at Thor's hand, outstretched once again to help him up. He can feel the Mind Stone in his forehead, a distant but present pulse, ancient and wild, uncontrolled. 

But not, he thinks, uncontrollable. 

He sets Mjolnir in Thor's hand, and rises on his own.

*

Bruce is in the hangar when Sokovia dissolves. It's done just in time, after they're certain the entire island has been evacuated but before it can hit the point of breaking apart on its own, and under the Mind Stone's power there isn't a rock that doesn't completely lose its structural integrity. It keeps the world below safe, from debris anyway. Bruce tries to fathom what having a whole island just up and disappear will do to the ecosystem, to the geography of the surrounding nations, to the political landscape, and he can't. The enormity of it draws a blank that reminds him too much of the Hulk's single-mindedness, and if he thinks about who's to blame for all this he'll be more than just reminded. 

If he took one of these jets he could think about it all he wants. He could test if an engine explosion or a miles-long fall or drowning will work where a bullet couldn't. He could...

He could reinforce what all his small attempts at letting himself die, all his own research, all of what Peggy and Steve had told him about their own conversations with Erskine, had taught him. That what the serum, in whatever variation and with the help of whatever radiation, was geared to do was help the recipient _survive_ , whether that meant curing a disease or dramatically increasing muscle mass or transforming a person into an invulnerable monster. That there might be nothing, no force in heaven or earth, or at least none that he could get his hands on, that could kill him. 

Maybe the Mind Stone could, but he doubted he could get Vision on board with trying it out, if Thor's report on Vision's grief over Ultron implied anything about the android's character. 

"You lookin' to run away, Dr. Banner?"

 _Am I_ , Bruce thinks, and he doesn't properly respond to Fury's inquiry. 

"Gonna ask you to hold tight until we touch down," Fury continues. "Quinjets are a limited resource. We're gonna need them for supply runs."

"Supply runs."

"Well, yeah. Between this ship and the Lifeboats there're several thousand people and a couple hundred animals in our care, Doc. They're all gonna have to eat at _some_ point."

Bruce nods. "So what's gonna...what's gonna happen to them now?"

"Well..." Fury sighs, "we don't rightly know just at the moment, but I'm sure Stark'll dream something up."

"Yeah, he's...he's good for that sorta thing," Bruce says, bittersweet. 

"They can stay with us for awhile, 'til some assistance shows up. Again, if we don't lose the resources to care for them."

"I get it," Bruce says, almost snaps. "I'm not gonna take a quinjet."

"Wasn't just talking about the quinjet." It takes Bruce a moment not to realize what Fury is talking about, but to work through his incredulity. "Got a lotta injuries on board and definitely not enough medics. Seem to recall you having some medical training."

"...yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Well then." Fury steps to the side and gestures out of the landing bay. 

"I really doubt the Sokovian people want me helping them at this point."

"They don't know about you and Ultron. Even if they did, I think they're at the any-port-in-a-storm phase at the moment."

A small, sardonic laugh falls out of Bruce's mouth. "That's, that's interesting. Not used to thinking of myself in those terms."

"Maybe that's the problem."

Bruce glances up at Fury. Fury flicks his gaze away, pointedly. 

"Couple years ago you guys called me out for building weapons behind your backs. Two years after that Hydra almost got its hand on technology that could've killed millions of people in seconds. Technology that I'd signed off on despite your warnings." He looks back at Bruce, setting his mouth so he looks unimpressed. "I've had a very long career with some pretty spectacular cock-ups, Dr. Banner. You think you're the only one who's wanted to take a plane and rabbit to parts unknown? Or something exponentially more permanent?"

"Why haven't you?" Bruce asks, abruptly, and the his face twists in horror as he realizes the implications of his words. "I mean...I mean I didn't mean it like that, I'm not saying you should--"

"Relax, Banner," Fury says, waving a hand dismissively. "You can't bring up anything I haven't thought about already." Bruce noises softly, awkwardly, and Fury shifts on his feet, squares his shoulder. "I got into this business to help people. Protect them. I stay in this business to do the same thing. Trouble comes around no matter what, always, but I can help stave it off for a bit."

Bruce scoffs, but not derisively. Sam had said much the same in the jet, but... "And when you _are_ the trouble?"

"You change. However much you can. You stand, you wise up. And you either fix what you fucked up, or if you can't, you move on to the next good you can do. Right now we've got people suffering, and if anyone wants to blame me for it because I put the Avengers together in the first place, that's fine. I'm still gonna be here, doing what I can. Because, Dr. Banner, in the long run? I've found that taking care of people is a lot more important than hating myself."

Bruce swallows, and nods. He'd done that before, he thinks; when the Other Guy spit the bullet out and he decided that, rather than test out poison or starvation, he'd go to Kolkata. And he'd done well there. He'd saved a few people's lives, kept a few families in tact. 

Fury's got his head tilted in the same direction he's turned towards, his hand twitching surreptitiously, beckoning. 

If he'd done that before, he can do it again. It doesn't matter, after all, if they forgive him; he can still help them, _should_ still help them, and he can always...

"And one of these days," Fury says, after Bruce passes him, when he's on the stairs, "one of these days, you guys're gonna figure out that _you're_ people, too."

Bruce stops mid-step, his fist gripping the banister. It's not a thought that the Hulk can keep a grip on, but it can, and has in the past, alighted on his fingertips; flying away at the first sign of trouble, but fluttering back when his mind was quiet and hands were still. 

It's there now, tentative, guarded. Waiting to be crushed, or to be held with both hands. 

He leaves it where it is, and heads back up the stairs.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW: mentions of past suicide attempts, mentions of past torture, pregnancy, mentions of past miscarriages, mentions of medication, mentions of needles**
> 
> At this point in history, same-sex marriage was legal in Illinois but not countrywide.

_There's no privacy on a boat,_ Sarah Rogers told her son a few times, when he inquired about what the trip from Ireland to America had been like. There's no privacy on a helicarrier, either, and thousands of people to record, aid medically, feed, and keep calm, so there's no time for any of the Avengers to say more than relayed orders to each other until the helicarrier touches down in the gulf, and rescue boats from the surrounding nations show up to relieve them of some of the passengers and donate supplies to the ones who remain. Even then, helping to process the donations coming aboard and the refugees departing takes hours, and it's starting to dawn the next day before the situation has calmed down enough to afford a few of the Avengers the opportunity to collapse in corners or chairs and at least close their eyes for a bit.

Steve, naturally, is not one of them, and proactively has found a way to make himself useful, separating and organizing boxes of canned and freeze-dried foodstuffs in the kitchen supply closet, to make distributing breakfast in a couple hours easier. It's a narrow space, and consequently a one-person job; one that he's chosen so he can tell Peggy and Bucky to go get some rest.

It's the first time since Bucky nearly fell that he's let either of them end up more than twenty feet away from him for longer than a few minutes, and he's only doing it on the not-unfounded assumption that they'll remain together. It almost physically hurts Peggy to admit that she has to use the ladies' room, since at this point about two thousand people are still on the helicarrier, and though the majority of them are sleeping, there's still an excruciatingly long line for the restroom. Bucky promises not to move away from the area once she disappears inside the room, but Peggy is still antsy the entire time.

Her stomach drops out of her belly when she finally emerges to not see him immediately, and her call of his name is hoarse and weak even as it rings in her ears. She tries again, and it comes out as more of a croak. The third time it's finally a proper shout, nearing a scream; after the fourth time he sticks his head around the corner of a nearby wall, and her heart starts beating again.

"I'm sorry, Pegs," he says, as he hurries back to her. "There was, I looked over; saw a kid getting too close to the edge. Had to get her before she...fell. Pegs?"

Peggy is ghost-white, unmoving except for her trembling hands and heavily, rapidly blinking eyes. Bucky lets his hand drift forward, nudging hers, and she grabs his wrist like she had before, when he was dangling off the side of a floating island.

"Aw, Peggy..." It takes him a beat to remember the nightmare Wanda had given him, and by that time he's already reached out, burying his fingers in her hair and pulling her forward, into him. Her hands claw at his shoulder blades before she finally gets a hold on his shirt, and the sound is muffled against his chest but anyone looking could tell that she's sobbing.

Bucky glances around, finally honing in on a spot that's out of the way, and walks them over to it. He somehow finagles getting them both onto the floor and situated next to each other, and Peggy transfers her face from his chest to her knees.

He sets his hand on her upper back, gently pinching the skin on either side of her neck, and as she shudders underneath his hand he does it again, increasing the area and pressure and then adding his other hand, laughing a little when she can't help but squirm under the cooler metal. They'd done this for each other, Peggy says and Bucky thinks he remembers, back in the war; their imperfect serums, rendered without the benefit of radiation, caused growth in fits and spurts, and they felt every nerve and muscle expanding in capacity, every bone getting denser, as it happened; whether they were placebos or no, the massages helped. After coming home he'd been given several months' worth of touch therapy, relearning how to use his hands for something other than inflicting damage, but he'd still been nervous about putting his bare hands near her neck and spine, preferring to have a buffer like a feather, or a scarf wrapped around his fingers, when he practiced human interaction. Some of those nerves are still there--maybe they won't go away, or they will only a long time from now--but he pushes through them.

It's only a few minutes before Peggy stops actively crying, but she stays as she is and he keeps working her neck and back and shoulders, realizing after awhile that it's for his sake as much as hers.

"Sorry I disappeared on you there," he says quietly. "Figures, just as soon as you get inside some kid goes wandering off..." She makes a noise that's uncharacteristically high-pitched, and he kisses the side of her head. "I'm sorry I scared you."

She takes a shuddery, open-mouthed breath, and peeks up over the edge of her arms, mouth still covered. Her eyes are narrowed, not quite into a glare, more like an internal debate; Bucky relaxes against the wall, and keeps working her back quietly while she chews on whatever it is she's thinking about. 

"I was..." Bucky doesn't realize how close he is to drifting off until her voice brings him back to wakefulness. "Jealous isn't the right word. I just...I didn't know how to feel about it. If it was better or worse that I...that I wasn't there. When you...on the train."

Bucky says nothing. Peggy stops for a long moment, and then coughs, clearing her throat. 

"I didn't want to...at the farm, what you said, about waiting to hear that one of us...I thought of it before, you know. Leaving the Tower one day and...not...and not making it back home again. But I told myself, you know, I told myself getting rid of Hydra was the most important thing, so I kept on, but after hearing that from your mouth, I...I couldn't. I couldn't just...leave you behind, and never come back."

"Pegs..."

"Maybe that was selfish? I was trying so hard not to be..."

"Hey." He nudges her shoulder, and again, harder each time, until she looks at him. "It was what _I_ was choosing to do, so it can't have been one hundred percent selfish on your part."

She tries to laugh. That he hadn't said "wanted" is not lost on her. 

"And you know I woulda just taken Maria's jet and gone after you anyway even if you'd left me behind." He just barely forces a grin onto his face. "A guy can't run with you two for very long without _also_ turning into a bullheaded pain in the ass."

He raises his voice slightly with that, to let Peggy and Steve know that he knows Steve is there, in the shadow of a corner; he correctly surmises that Steve must've heard Peggy calling for him and come running, and then elected to give them their space, if not total privacy. To not fully break the illusion Bucky starts mussing Peggy's hair under his palm, and to play along with it she elbows him in the stomach, digging in until he winces and stops. 

"Is that how you see us?"

"Bullheaded pains in the ass? Yeah."

Peggy shakes her head. "I mean...I mean like in...that...what we saw."

"No," Bucky says immediately, vehemently. " _Jesus_ , no, Peggy, I would've...God, if I had this much of my own mind and I thought you guys were...were like that to me, I'd..." He doesn't need to voice his multiple escape and suicide attempts between falling from the train and losing his mind; Peggy whimpers and clutches at him the same without it. "It's just...it's just fear, right, what Wanda can...what'd Maria say, cognitive manipulation or whatever. Whether it's a...a real fear, a _rational_ one or not, that doesn't matter, right?" Peggy shrugs tightly. "I told you. I know it wasn't real. And you know me, Pegs, if I'm _this_ certain about it..."

"I know," she says quickly. It had taken awhile to convince Bucky that it was safe to speak his memories--Hydra had called them "daydreams" or "malfunctions" and summarily, ruthlessly punished them--out loud, and blessedly the ones that he did were always true, with maybe only a few details fudged or forgotten. Once he had gotten to a place where he could accept it, nothing had helped him like knowing that his brain had kept trying to resist Hydra's control, kept trying to recover and had to be damaged over and over again to prevent that from happening, and she doesn't want to undermine that now by casting doubt on his ability to distinguish reality from nightmares. 

"And you know, it wouldn't be...you wouldn't be this cut up about it if you guys really _were_ like that to me. If you could even think to do that stuff in the first place, you wouldn't care if it hurt me, right?"

She gives a little laugh at the deceptively simple logic. "I suppose."

" _See_." 

Her giggle is a little more comfortable now. She tests the waters, shifting against him so she burrows closer; he moves his arm so it's draped across her back, his hand clamped around her shoulders. 

"It's funny, how we...not funny _ha-ha_ but...how we all had, had the same one. The same vision. Maybe there's something to that soulmate stuff, after all," Bucky says, only half-kidding. 

"Maybe we're all scared of, of the same things," Peggy offers quietly, as a supplement rather than an alternative. "Similar things."

Bucky shifts from side to side in lieu of nodding or speaking. His hand comes up, to toy with the hair that's fallen out of her elastic and rub her temple; it's a surefire way to lull her into at least rest, if not sleep. He glances up, figuring now's as good a time as any to let Steve in, and gestures for him to do so.

Peggy, to return his favor, closes her eyes and pretends to be falling asleep, and Steve, gratefully, comes out of his hiding spot to take his place beside them. 

"You wanted to talk to me about something?" Bucky asks, after enough time has elapsed that Peggy _could_ conceivably have fallen asleep. His younger self, he thinks, might have danced around prompting Steve to speak his heart, or used an argument to get results; nowadays he's had to rely so much on observation and acting thereupon that he'd figured out a more peaceful way to make Steve talk completely by accident. 

Still not easily or comfortably, though, because it's a clumsy silence that proceeds Steve beginning to speak. 

"I don't know how...how much you heard over the radio, when we were...on the boat. In Sudan."

 _Puppet_ had stung. _Puppet_ had slapped him across the face, had demanded a mission report, had issued a kill order for...he had been lucky that Bruce had been there, pacing nervously as they listened in; the movement had been something to focus on in the present. 

"All that stuff he said, about how I..."

"You know he, he wasn't trying to make a real point or anything, right?" Bucky interrupts. "He was just trying to rile you up."

"I know what he was trying to do," Steve says, in a strange, worrisome voice. 

The cheating part hadn't been so bad. He'd looked up a little of the reaction, when Steve and Peggy had finally confirmed publicly that yes, they were a triad; had come across speculation of the same. It had actually been nice to know that some people were outraged on his behalf, even though he trusted Steve and Peggy wholly when they said that there had been no affair. 

"When we were kids," Steve finally says, somehow breaking the silence both abruptly and tentatively, "I wanted to be a good person because...because I thought there weren't actually a whole lot of them, in the world. Don't know how much you recall, but..."

"Enough to know that you had reason to think that," Bucky affirms quietly. 

Steve nods, and breathes. "So. Yeah, that was...if no one else was gonna, then I would be. And then I...then I met you, and...God, you were special, Buck, you were just...and I knew, back then, that someone whose heart was that...soft, that... _open_...that anyone could just walk right in and destroy it. So I wanted to..." He gives a little, sardonic, despairing laugh. "You spent all those years protecting me, and the whole time I wanted to protect _you_."

Bucky manages a smile for him, but just barely. "Could kinda tell...?"

"So when I got the serum, I thought...I thought now, maybe, I could do it. I was fast and strong and everything I always wanted to be, and now I could...I got cocky. I asked you to stay with me."

"But then I fell," Bucky says, and Steve nods, something like a whimper escaping his lips. "And I came back as...oh my God, _Steve_..."

"Since you came back," Steve interrupts, "I've been trying to... _we've_ been trying to..." His hand drifts over, to brush Peggy's wrist; Bucky has always known his mind but Peggy has always, even with trepidations, ultimately shared it. "We wanted to finally do it. Get rid of Hydra, make the world safe. For everyone, but for, especially for you. But we can't, we fucking can't, there's always something else, and--"

He covers his eyes with the line running between his thumb and index finger, and breathes like he wants to cry and laugh at himself at the same time. Peggy shifts against Bucky's side, and it's Bucky's turn to test the waters, sliding his right hand into Steve's free left one; Steve immediately squeezes it, to the point where it almost hurts.

"Do you want us to stop?" Steve chokes more than asks. "Would that...I mean, you basically spent all of the 30s tryin' to--"

"Before, before you go there," Bucky cuts in quickly. "I spent the 30s trying to make sure you'd make it to the 40s. I didn't, you know...you just worried me, is all. I didn't... _resent_ what you were tryin' to do with your life. I wanted to do it too, y'know."

"Yeah," Steve admits. "Yeah, that was, that was why I liked you."

"I coulda ditched you at some point, if I'd wanted. I coulda not signed up on my own. I coulda...I coulda taken the discharge."

"Yeah. Yeah."

"It'd kill you to stop doing this, Steve. You and Peggy both. It would, don't even try to argue with me. I know who you guys are, and I don't want you to be anyone else. Maybe just...I dunno. Be smarter with it?" Steve laughs. "I prefer it when you're out with the team, so you got people looking out for you. I know Peggy's great with the solo stuff, though...and I mean I'm always gonna worry, it's just...I can't control my own fucking nerves most of the time, so it's...it's just a lot, at the moment."

"We'll figure something out," Steve says, and it unnerves him, how much he means it when he's not sure how to do it, but then it had felt much the same when they left PCM last April, and they've come so far already...

"You know at some point I'm gonna...I might wanna...I'm not really looking to repeat this experience anytime soon, but...I dunno, maybe when I can leave the Tower without getting the shakes, I might..." 

"Mmhmm?" Steve hums, trying to sound encouraging and to not let the image of Bucky dangling off the side of Sokovia overwhelm him.

"There're lots of way to be a do-gooder, I guess," is what Bucky finally says. "We'll figure something out," he says, jostling Peggy just the slightest bit, to let her maintain the illusion of being asleep.

"As long as it's what...it's what _you_ want." _Not something I dragged you into_ goes unspoken, but is heard loud and clear. 

"I'm never doing anything I don't want ever again," Bucky says, with a finality he hopes is true, is almost entirely ready to believe is true. "And I know who I want to be with." He raises his metal hand slightly, and Peggy lets her eyes crack open so all three of them can watch the dawning light pick up the gold around his ring finger, the waking sun illuminate the stories of his tattoos. "I know who I am."

*

"Oh my. Now _this_ looks familiar."

"What?" Natasha asks, without looking up. "A sadsack licking her wounds on your couch?"

"I wouldn't say _sadsack_ ," Laura protests. It's been a few days since most of the Avengers landed stateside and Clint came home, and to be honest she hadn't expected Natasha to eventually follow him, even if she's not entirely surprised. She does wonder, briefly, if she would have seen Natasha had she not come downstairs to fulfill her nightly craving of pineapple chunks and a glass of iced vanilla chai, or if the other woman would have been long gone by morning.

"That's highly generous of you."

"Be right back," Laura says, giving Natasha the opportunity to run away, but by the time she returns with the fruit and tea, Natasha hasn't moved, and Laura decides to push her luck. "Budge up a bit? No, no, you can stay...laying down," she says, when Natasha moves to straighten up. "Just wanted a place to sit."

Natasha pauses for a moment, and then does as bade, draping her knees over the armrest so Laura can sit on the freed-up cushions and set her snack on the coffee table. Nathaniel-or-Natalie doesn't take to her bending over too kindly, and Laura squeaks when she feels a soft but distinct kick.

"My apologies," she grumbles at her belly, and then glances at Natasha, whose face is indescribable before she schools it into a dim smile. "Here." She reaches for Natasha's hand, catching it before she can pull it away. "You probably won't feel anything; kiddo just started kicking like last week, but you can try..."

"It's okay, Laur."

"Come o~n," Laura goads, first teasing, then painfully earnest. "It's okay, Nat. C'mon. I want you to. Please."

Natasha doesn't actively accept the invitation, but she lets Laura guide her hand forward so it rests on her belly. Laura was right; she doesn't feel the baby kicking, but that doesn't stop Natasha from releasing an aching, wonderstruck little noise at the contact.

"We figured out what was wrong, did we tell you?" Laura asks, pressing Natasha's hand against her belly so she doesn't move it away. "Dr. Essex had a hunch, so he did some tests, and it turns out that, um, I had a protein deficiency that was, um, your blood gets thicker, when you're pregnant, and because I had this deficiency my body didn't know how to handle it, so it freaked out and...shut the whole thing down. Remember how I started taking baby aspirin? That's what made my blood thin enough. And now I take progesterone to help the baby grow. And heparin shots so the progesterone doesn't give me a blood clot. I know it sounds like a lot," she says, with a weak laugh, when she sees Natasha's face. "But it's not too awful. And Dr. Essex says everything's progressing normally." 

She pats Natasha's wrist, giving her permission to draw her hand away before her arm goes stiff, and settles her own hand on the top of Natasha's head. 

"So you know now, it wasn't anything...anything you did. You didn't stress me out too much, or...curse my womb or whatever you were thinking you did." Natasha scoffs, not quite hiding the truth of the errant thoughts that had plagued her through all of Laura's miscarriages. Laura reaches over, plucking a chunk of pineapple out of her bowl, and holds it over Natasha's face until Natasha opens her mouth to catch it when Laura lets it drop. 

The juice is not as tart as Natasha was expecting. 

"So where you headed now? You got a couple days before, um, before the rebuilding starts, Clint said." Natasha shrugs awkwardly, for laying down. "Um, you can always...I mean, you know that you can always stay here. It's um...you know I always preferred the farm to the house? I mean, we were living in fuc--...stupid _Kentucky_ , whose brilliant idea was that?"

 _Your parents'_ is the right answer but Laura is on a roll and Natasha knows better. 

"Here, you know, it's...it's quieter, and certainly a lot more scenic. The air is cleaner. I didn't like the kids' school, either, even before everything. I think they're doing better with the homeschooling."

Natasha accepts another chunk of pineapple. 

"Yeah. That was an...an untenable situation we had going there. And hey, you know what else?" Natasha glances up to see Laura waggling her eyebrows at her. "You and I could get married. It's legal here." Natasha snorts. "I'm serious. I'll get tired of Clint eventually. Cutting his ass loose and marrying the hot redhead sounds like a plan. And that way you'd have rights to the kids."

"I think I've broken your home enough, Laur."

"As long as you're not here my home is broken."

Natasha is silent, or maybe unable to speak. In the stunned quiet she only just hears the creak of the stairs as Clint investigates his wife's prolonged absence. 

"You didn't, it wasn't you, it wasn't your fault, Nat. They took...they tried to take _your_ kids away, too. You're...you're their mama, you're our wifey. Why do you think we moved here, instead of...instead of dumping you? You're non-negotiable. We wanted you here. We _want_ you here."

Clint tiptoes over to the couch, but all subtlety is lost when he climbs over the back of it; his gambit pays off, because he gets amused noises out of both women. He settles into the last cushion, first sitting on Natasha's legs, and then accepting it when she frees herself and kneads him rather harshly with her feet in retaliation. Laura, playfully, distracts her with another piece of fruit, and Clint catches her feet once she stops moving them, settling them on his lap. After a moment, once she's swallowed, he starts to rub his thumb over and around her ankle bone. 

"You know," Laura scolds, and Clint and Natasha look at her but this time she's addressing the baby, "I realize that it's very exciting having other people here, but if you could settle down just a smidge, that'd be greatly appreciated."

"It's a little brat, huh?" Natasha says, squirming so she flips over onto her stomach. 

"Just like his mama," Clint says, and Natasha smacks the top of her foot onto his thigh. "Hey."

"You should behave for Mommy," Natasha aims at the fetus, and Laura could swear that the kid is listening, because the fluttering inside her stops. "She's a very good mother. She deserves good things."

"She deserves to have what she wants," Laura says quietly.

"And we're gonna fight like hell to make sure she gets it," Clint adds, delicately vehement, as he settles his hand on the small of Natasha's back. 

"See," Natasha says after a moment, still addressing the child. "You would be very foolish to do anything that would hurt them."

Laura and Clint feel the same little bolt of cold fear run through them, freezing them just as Natasha is still but tense, ready to spring. They breathe, uneasily, as one when Natasha moves, but instead of standing up and walking out, she simply turns onto her side, leaning her hip just slightly into Clint's hand, resting the crown of her head against Laura's leg.

After awhile, when she's sure that Clint's fallen asleep sitting up and Laura's on autopilot stroking her hair with one hand while the other runs over her baby, Natasha hears a lullaby being hummed, maybe by Laura, maybe by her own head. 

_The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout_  
_Down came the rain and washed the spider out ___  
_The sun began to shine and it dried up all the rain_  
_And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again_

____

____

The Black Widow closes her eyes and goes to sleep.


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: implied antiromanyism**

"Can't touch Stark, he's rich," Phillips had said back in '42, and that seemed to hold true seventy-three years and one generation later. Granted, Tony (and Bruce) had not actually committed a _crime_ ; it had been within their rights to study appropriated Hydra assets and even to try to repurpose them. That the Mind Stone _itself_ , rather than simply its user, could be hostile wasn't something anyone had known going in, so they technically couldn't even be held to be negligent. 

Legally, at least; the court of public opinion is split, within both populations and individuals. The handful of countries that had been reluctant to sign the Accords now begin talks of revoking their consent; this raises the fear that these nations might become havens for Hydra, so as a compromise the Avengers agree to be benched for a little while, as the Accords undergo a revision process that affords more oversight to the treaty's member nations and the executive staff.

"Looks like I'm the director of you again, Stark," Fury says, with just the barest hint of smugness.

"Look how that worked out," Steve says to Bucky, who laughs to show more than hide his gratitude.

While technically guilty of obstruction of justice, illegal border crossing, trafficking in stolen goods, multiple counts of assault, and conspiracy to commit murder across a few nations, Wanda escapes the ICC by virtue of being a month and a half shy of 18 years old. Sudan declines to charge her for entering the country illegally ("Probably so no one takes too close a look at that island," Sam snorts when he hears), and South Korea does no more than ban her from entering the country for one year, citing her actions against Ultron within their borders as reason for the light punishment.

Wanda is, at first, apathetic about the thought of releasing her Hydra records to the public, uninterested in the support it might garner her, until it's pointed out to her that it'd be a chance to, if not posthumously exonerate Pietro, then at least shed a sympathetic light on his actions. And it does; while not as massive and widespread as for Bucky, global public support for the twins shows strong once the coercive influence of Hydra and the Mind Stone is brought to light, even if Wanda hadn't been controlled directly the way he or Clint had. The king of Wakanda issues a statement that his country "does not seek to punish tortured children and the prisoners of terrorists" and, since the vibranium was outright destroyed and couldn't be repurposed as a weapon, they only sought monetary reimbursement in the form of half the vibranium's value, reasoning that Wanda had not stolen it initially and shouldn't be held responsible for all of it.

Tony pays. "Least I can do," he says, when Wanda tries to object. "Figure this'll buy me a week of no throat-slitting."

Sokovian law, already relatively lenient towards minors, is further swayed towards mercy when the Avengers decline to pursue legal action against her; in conjunction with her very visible actions during the Battle of Sokovia, and considering that the "country" has more pressing problems to deal with at the moment, she's granted an official pardon.

What to do with Vision is something new and uncharted. "Android" isn't a legal category, and to some, his possession of the Mind Stone classifies him as a weapon, while others consider his clear sentience to indicate that he is a human. The ability to lift Mjolnir where they cannot is initially not convincing to the tribunal in charge of determining his fate, until the Avengers demonstrate their own difficulty with moving it. His actions in Sokovia, of course, speak for themselves, and eventually they rule in favor of his humanity. After that it becomes a question of which country he is a citizen of, based on the facsimile of parentage he can claim; eventually he is granted dual citizenship between the United States and South Korea, with Tony and Helen legally considered his parents.

"It's okay Helen; Maria's got a thing for moms," Rhodey teases, which earns him a hard slap to the back of the head. 

Tony makes a joke about immaculate conception, which is immediately corrected by Bruce as doctrinally inaccurate; Tony flips him off. Privately he goes a little misty-eyed.

Pepper takes the news in as much stride as she humanly can.

Sidelined as they are for now, the Avengers are free to work as civilians under the auspices of the Stark Relief Foundation as it undertakes the rebuilding of a new Sokovia in the same place the old one had been. In the meantime the refugees are split between the neighboring cities of Helsinki, Talinn, and St. Petersburg, with a handful headed to other countries, including the United States. 

This gives Rhodey, who unlike Tony has friends and some pull in Congress, an idea: petitioning for a private bill of citizenship, or at least permanent residency, for Wanda, because as he says, "It's gonna be hard for you to be an Avenger if you're geographically isolated from the rest of us."

"An...you're serious?"

"We could use someone like you, if you're up for it. But it's not conditional. If you wanna move to the US, we'll petition for you whether or not you join up. And if you don't wanna move here at all, that's fine. Just think about it? And call us when you make up your mind."

She thinks about it for awhile, staying at a hotel in Helsinki and contributing what she can to the rebuilding efforts in the meantime, seeing the other Avengers as they come and go from the area for the same reason. When the Accords are revised, to everyone's more-or-less satisfaction, the Avengers send her a copy, "so you know exactly what you're signing up for."

These were people she had brutally attacked with their own minds. How could they be so...

"That's what we're about, kid," Clint says, when she sees him; his and Laura and Natasha's baby is already born and he's shown her a picture of him wearing a onesie monogrammed with _Nathaniel Pietro Barton_. "See, we're not the Restorers or something like that. We can't... _undo_ anything. We just...we salvage what's left and build from there. And most of us're in the same boat as you, kid. Did dirty because we were done dirty, and now we're cleaning up."

The Avengers are there once the artificial island's infill is completely laid, the plan being that they'll be there when the first building's foundation is laid to take photos (public interest in the island is waning as construction becomes the status quo, and this will hopefully generate some more buzz). In the early morning before the first ground is to be broken, Wanda wakes them at their hotel and asks them to come with her to the island now. 

There are no pictures of Pietro left except for grainy Hydra surveillance photos, and those don't seem appropriate. Instead Wanda has a sketch, drawn by telekinetically moving colored pencils across paper as she pictured her brother, encased in a simple wooden frame. Once they're all assembled, in a rough approximation of where the small Sokovian forest used to be, she holds it close to her chest, and uses her powers to cut out a thin hole in the ground, much deeper than it is wide. 

"You're not gonna lay it flat?" Tony asks. 

Wanda shakes her head. "There is a...a saying. A Romani saying. _Bury me standing_ ," for a moment she thinks his voice has come from her mouth, and she catches a shuddering breath, " _bury me standing, for my whole life I have been on my knees._ It was...he asked me. In my head. Right before he..."

She wants to cry, and she will, but she wants to speak first. 

"When we were little, Day would call him Quicksilver, because of how he would run around so much. We had a make-believe game, where Quicksilver the magic horse would run around while I, the evil witch, would try to catch him and make horsey soup out of him." She pauses, feeling the rest of them wonder where this is going. "I would like to be called that. The Witch. Maybe the..." she lets her hands spark with just a little show of power. "The Red Witch."

"That's really a _scarlet_ , if you want to get technical," Tony says before he can stop himself. 

"Okay, It's-Not-Actually-Iron Man," Pepper, who is there as their handler, mutters. 

"It works, I guess," Wanda says, as she turns to face the group with a broad grin and tears slipping down her face. "Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. It has a...a nice ring to it."

She asks them to help her fill in the grave, and as she watches them drop in small handfuls of dirt one by one while she clutches the small stones she'll use to cover the gravesite, she thinks that she was wrong before. It was not the act of taking revenge that defined this team. It was the decision, made over and over again, every day, to take their lives back from who and what had stolen them. To do something worthwhile with what they had left. 

"Today I am an Avenger," she tells the journalists shoving microphones in her face, as the rest of her team huddles around her, alternately beaming proudly and frowning worriedly and pushing back those who would get too close, "in the truest sense of the word."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so very, very much for reading and commenting. There was probably more I could have done with this had there not been a time limit (and had I not, like a tool, lost six chapters and had to spend a week rewriting them) but I am mostly pleased with how it turned out. 
> 
> So many thanks to my artist umetnica/ellesbeesknees, and my sister G who beta'd for me.


End file.
